Skip to main content

Full text of "James Joyce miscellany"

See other formats 


m 


m 


UNIVERSITY 
OF  FLORIDA 
LIBRARIES 


COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

LYRASIS  IVIembers  and  Sloan  Foundation 


http://archive.org/details/jamesjoycemiscelOOmaga 


A  James  Joyce  Miscellany 


THIRD      SERIES 


THIS  VOLUME  WAS  PREPARED  UNDER  THE  SPONSORSHIP  OF  THE 
JAMES  JOYCE  SOCIETY  IN  NEW  YORK.  THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE 
PUBLICATIONS  COMMITTEE  OF  THE  SOCIETY  ARE  HERBERT 
CAHOON,  PADRAIC  COLUM,  LEON  EDEL  (CHAIR- 
MAN), MALCOLM  MERRITT,  FRANCES  STELOFF, 
AND  WILLIAM  YORK  TINDALL.  EX  OFFICIO  MEMBERS 
ARE    MARIA    JOLAS    AND    JAMES    JOHNSON    SWEENEY. 


A  James  Joyce  Miscellany 


THIRD    SERIES 


EDITED  BY  Maivin  Magalaner 


^    .    ■* 


Southern  Illinois  University  Press 
Carbondale 


ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED. 

COPYRIGHT   (C)    1962    BY   SOUTHERN   ILLINOIS   UNIVERSITY   PRESS. 
LIBRARY   OF    CONGRESS    CATALOG    CARD    NUMBER    62-15OO2 
PRINTED    IN   THE   UNITED    STATES   OF   AMERICA   BY 
VAIL-BALLOU   PRESS,    INC.,    BINGHAMTON,    NEW   YORK 

Designed  by  Andor  Braun 


To  the  memory  of 

HARRIET  SHAW  WEAVER 


EDITOR     S     NOTE 


TO  PREPAREa  book  of  this  kind,  an  editor  needs  the 
cooperation  of  many  people.  This  help  has  been  generously 
offered  and  humbly  accepted  during  the  past  two  years.  The 
editor  wishes  first  to  acknowledge  the  good  will  of  scores  of 
writers  whose  essays  on  Joyce  could  not  be  included  in  this 
collection  for  reasons  of  length  or  editorial  balance.  An  equal 
debt  of  gratitude  is  owed  to  the  late  Miss  Harriet  Weaver 
and  the  administrators  of  the  Joyce  Estate  for  permitting 
the  publication  of  Joyce's  story,  ''Christmas  Eve/'  and  to 
them  and  The  Society  of  Authors  for  the  right  to  use  manu- 
script drafts  of  "Gas  from  a  Burner."  The  Miscellany  is 
further  indebted  to  the  Cornell  University  Library,  which 
has  physical  possession  of  these  documents,  for  permission 
to  publish  them  here. 

The  editor  acknowledges  gratefully  the  granting  of  per- 
mission by  The  University  of  Chicago  Press  and  Modern 
Philology  to  reprint  James  R.  Thrane's  ''Joyce's  Sermon  on 
Hell:  Its  Source  and  Its  Backgrounds";  by  the  Kenyon  Re- 
view  to  use  WilKam  Empson's  "The  Theme  of  Ulysses"; 
and  by  The  University  of  Toronto  Quarterly  to  republish 
Trevor  Lennam's  "The  Happy  Hunting  Ground." 

For  their  assistance,  the  editor  is  especially  grateful  to 
Herbert  Gaboon,  Leon  Edel,  Charles  E.  Feinberg,  and  the 
efficient  editorial  staff  of  Southern  Illinois  University  Press. 
The  James  Joyce  Society  has  been  willing  to  lend  its  distin- 
guished name  as  sponsor  of  this  volume. 

Finally,  I  wish  to  note  the  support  of  my  wife,  who  has 
helped,  and  the  distracting  activities  of  my  son,  who  has 
delayed  the  publication  of  this  book. 

M.  M. 


CONTENTS 


Introduction  xi 

MARVIN    MAGALANER 

1  Christmas  Eve  3 

JOHN    J.    SLOCUM    AND 
HERBERT    CAHOON 

2  The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce  8 

ROBERT    SCHOLES 

3  Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  19 

JAMES    R.    BAKER 

4  Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  33 

JAMES    R.    THRANE 

5  The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  79 

JOSEPH    PRESCOTT 

6  The  Theme  of  Ulysses  i2y 

W^ILLIAM    EMPSON 

7  The  Yankee  Interviewer  in  Ulysses  155 

RICHARD    M.    KAIN 

8  The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  1^8 

T.    LENNAM 

9  Blake  in  Nighttown  ly^ 

MORTON    D.    PALEY 

10     Joyce  and  Blake  188 

ROBERT    F.    GLECKNER 

vii 


CONTENTS  Vlll 

11  In  the  Wake  of  the  Fianna  226 

VIVIAN    MERCIER 

12  Circhng  the  Square:  A  Study  of  Structure  239 

RUTH    VON    PHUL 

13  Notes  for  the  Staging  of  Finnegans  Wake  2y8 

DAVID    HAYMAN 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


between  pages  i^S-^j 
Manuscript  Pages  of  a  Joyce  Broadside 

Photograph  of  Joyce,  ca.  1930 


Introduction 


MARVIN     MAGALANER 


THE  impulse  to  explicate  Joyce  seems  on  the  wane.  Not 
that  critics  have  run  out  of  obscure  passages  to  puzzle  over. 
Quite  the  contrary,  Finnegans  Wake  alone  offers  sufficient 
unassimilated  chunks  to  feed  a  squad  of  researchers.  But 
forty  years  after  the  publication  of  Ulysses,  the  booming 
Joyce  industry,  as  Vivian  Mercier  calls  it  in  a  recent  article, 
has  apparently  decided  to  consolidate  its  position,  take  in- 
ventory of  the  material  it  has  produced  since  1922,  and 
branch  out  into  relatively  untraveled  territory.  Perhaps  this 
turning  point  in  Joyce  studies  accounts  for  the  mellow  final- 
ity of  two  current  publications:  the  newly  reissued  critical 
study  by  Harry  Levin,  now  augmented  by  a  chapter  on 
"Revisiting  Joyce";  and  William  York  TindalFs  Reader  s 
Guide  to  James  Joyce. 

Explication  in  bits  and  pieces,  without  enough  evaluative 
consideration  of  the  meaning  of  the  explication  in  the  entire 
context  of  Joyce's  work,  is  scored  by  S.  L.  Goldberg  in  The 
Classical  Temper:  A  Study  of  James  Joyce's  'Ulysses.'  This 
excellent  book  itself  supplies  the  best  argument  against  such 
fragmented  exegesis  by  presenting  an  extended,  beautifully 
reasoned  thesis  on  the  meaning  of  Joyce's  novel.  Though  the 
approach  is  philosophical,  the  demonstration  of  the  critic's 
points  is  concrete,  precise,  and  eminently  judicious.  Too  in- 
volved for  presentation  here,  Goldberg's  study  of  Bloom  and 

xi 


Xll  INTRODUCTION 

Stephen  against  a  backdrop  of  opposites  —  the  classical  and 
the  nonclassical  temper,  static  and  kinetic  approaches  to  life, 
and  so  forth  —  illuminates  the  meaning  and  the  structure 
of  Ulysses  with  a  completeness  not  hitherto  attained.  The 
author  has  probably  taken  meaningful  explication  as  far  as 
it  can  go. 

"How  did  Joyce  say  it,  and  why?"  These  questions  now 
hold  the  center  of  the  stage.  The  former  accounts  for  the 
large  number  of  books  that  have  appeared  since  1958  deal- 
ing with  technical  details  of  Joyce's  method  —  his  style,  his 
habits  of  composition,  his  use  of  allusions,  the  chronology 
of  his  novels,  the  drafts  of  his  stories,  the  proofsheets  of  his 
books,  and  the  various  published  versions  of  selected  sections 
of  Finnegans  Wake.  For  answers  to  the  latter  question,  the 
biographical  studies  recently  published  alter  remarkably  not 
only  what  has  been  thought  of  the  author  but  also  the  back- 
ground of  the  books  he  wrote. 

It  is  unlikely  that  many  writers  in  English  have  had  their 
literary  remains  exhumed  and  submitted  to  post-mortem 
examination  to  the  degree  that  Joyce's  have  been  during  the 
past  few  years.  Almost  no  piece  of  nonepistolary  prose  that 
Joyce  wrote  has  escaped  publication.  From  scraps  of  ele- 
mentary school  compositions  on  his  favorite  hero  to  manu- 
script versions  of  discarded  fiction  to  jottings  culled  from 
the  works  of  Walter  Pater  —  no  item  in  the  Master's  hand 
has  proved  too  trivial  for  libraries  to  purchase  and  students 
to  try  to  fit  into  a  larger,  more  meaningful  frame.  Much 
might  better  have  been  left  unearthed,  for  all  the  help  it 
has  been  to  significant  scholarship.  At  the  same  time,  how- 
ever, much  of  the  most  valuable  criticism  has  come  as  a 
result  of  careful  study  of  the  scraps  Joyce  left  behind  him. 
If  Joyce  is  worth  serious  consideration  as  man  and  artist, 
it  is  certainly  not  because  of  the  startling  originality  of  what 
he  had  to  say.  "What  oft  was  thought  but  ne'er  so  well 
expressed"  better  describes  his  contribution  to  modern  litera- 
ture. To  examine  the  workings  of  the  man's  creative  con- 


INTRODUCTION  Xlll 

sciousness,  therefore,  for  what  it  may  reveal  of  his  method  of 
composition  is  highly  profitable. 

As  the  documents  of  Joyce's  career  have  become  available, 
scholars  have  begun  to  take  advantage  of  what  the  record 
shows.  Joseph  Prescott's  analysis  of  Joyce's  ''stylistic  realism" 
in  the  last  Miscellany,  a  small  part  of  his  forthcoming  study 
of  the  proof  sheets  of  Ulysses,  is  a  step  in  that  direction.  In 
the  same  vein,  Fred  H.  Higginson's  publication  of  the  six 
parallel  drafts  of  one  segment  of  the  Wake  in  Anna  Livia 
Plurabelle:  The  Making  of  a  Chapter  illustrates  the  advan- 
tage of  being  able  to  compare  readily  and  intensively  the 
several  attempts  of  a  major  writer  to  say  the  same  thing. 
Similarly,  the  importance  of  establishing  the  chronology  of 
several  versions  of  the  same  passage  is  obvious  with  a  writer 
of  Joyce's  bizarre  habits  of  creation.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to 
justify  the  manifest  value  of  a  study  of  the  evolution  of 
Finnegans  Wake  —  the  chronology,  the  relationship  of  part 
to  part,  and  the  estabhshment  of  Joyce's  artistic  intent  —  as 
Walton  Litz  has  done  in  The  Art  of  James  Joyce.  To  provide 
the  kind  of  documents  needed  for  work  of  this  kind,  North- 
western University  Press  has  recently  published  Thomas 
Connolly's  edition  of  an  early  notebook  version  of  parts  of 
the  Wake  under  the  title  Scribbledehobble:  The  Ur-Note- 
book  for  Finnegans  Wake.  But  one  need  not  deal  exclusively 
with  the  complexities  of  Joyce's  last  novel.  Even  comparing 
drafts  of  his  early  short  stories  —  the  ostensibly  simple  nar- 
ratives of  Dubliners  —  may  yield  unexpected  results,  as  Hugh 
Kenner  has  suggested  in  Dublin's  Joyce  and  the  present  writer 
in  Time  of  Apprenticeship:  The  Fiction  of  Young  James 
Joyce. 

A  novelist  whose  method  demands  constant  association  of 
the  present  with  periods  of  the  past,  as  Joyce's  does,  will  tax 
the  associative  abihties  of  the  bulk  of  his  audience.  The 
juxtaposition  of  ancient  Greece  and  modern  Dublin,  of 
Earwicker  and  Mark  of  Cornwall,  of  the  giants  of  histor}^'s 
dawn  and  Parnell,  requires  a  familiarity  with  historical,  musi- 


XIV  INTRODUCTION 

cal,  sociological,  literary,  religious  and  other  allusion  beyond 
the  scope  of  any  single  reader.  To  compensate  for  the  in- 
formational lack,  the  last  two  years  have  seen  publication  of 
several  books  designed  to  classify  needed  background.  The 
most  ambitious  of  these  is  James  S.  Atherton's  The  Books 
at  the  Wake:  A  Study  of  Literary  Allusions  in  James  Joyces 
''Finnegans  Wake.''  Atherton  treats  intelligently  and  system- 
atically references  to  Swift,  Lewis  Carroll,  the  Bible,  the 
Korany  The  Book  of  the  Dead,  Shakespeare,  and  others.  In 
like  vein,  Matthew  J.  C.  Hodgart  and  Mabel  P.  Worthington, 
in  Song  in  the  Works  of  James  Joyce,  identify  references  to 
lyrics  in  Joyce's  books,  stressing  the  melodic  storehouse  of 
Finnegans  Wake.  Their  introductory  chapters  on  Joyce's 
method  are  informative,  though  the  chief  value  of  the  work 
is  its  listing  of  the  songs  and  musical  motifs  on  which  the 
author  leaned  so  heavily  for  his  effect  and  meaning.  And 
Frances  Motz  Boldereff  provides  an  enthusiastic,  occasionally 
faulty,  but  always  bizarrely  unusual  gloss  to  many  difficult 
allusions  in  Joyce's  last  novel,  under  the  title  of  Reading 
Finnegans  Wake.  Finally,  the  photographs  of  Joyce's  Ireland 
reproduced  by  William  York  Tindall  in  The  Joyce  Country 
offer  charming  yet  scholarly  pictorial  background  for  study- 
ing Joyce. 

As  useful  as  analysis  of  his  methods  of  composition  has 
proved  to  be,  the  great  advance  in  Joyce  scholarship  since 
the  publication  of  the  last  Miscellany  has  unquestionably 
been  in  biography.  At  last,  Joyce  is  emerging  as  the  human 
being  that  Herbert  Gorman  was  unwilling  or  unable  to 
create  in  his  ''supervised"  life  of  the  Irish  writer.  Numerous 
special  studies  have  helped  to  fill  in  the  serious  gaps  in  the 
information  that  Joyce  was  willing  to  let  his  audience  have 
while  he  lived.  In  Our  Friend  James  Joyce,  Mary  and  Padraic 
Colum  describe  the  artist  as  friend,  as  husband,  as  father, 
and  as  social  creature.  Most  valuable  in  this  volume  is  the 
hitherto  unavailable  picture  of  the  relationship  between 
Joyce  and  his  daughter  Lucia,  providing  as  it  does  an  insight 


INTRODUCTION  XV 

into  Joyce's  familial  emotions  and  his  attitudes  toward  psy- 
chology. In  a  more  specialized  study,  Kevin  Sullivan  de- 
scribes Joyce  among  the  Jesuits.  This  account  of  Joyce's 
Catholic  education,  scholarly  and  precise  in  most  of  its 
findings,  has  the  salutary  effect  of  distinguishing  between 
Joyce  and  Stephen  Dedalus  in  their  school  experiences,  and 
thus  of  placing  the  author  much  more  firmly  under  the 
sway  of  his  Jesuit  teachers  than  one  would  imagine  from 
reading  Gorman  or  projecting  the  impressions  of  young 
Stephen.  In  addition  to  the  service  rendered  in  this  way, 
Mr.  Sullivan  presents  a  clear  picture  of  the  kind  of  educa- 
tion Joyce  received  —  so  very  necessary  for  the  reader  who 
would  assess  the  significance  of  the  novels. 

Other  recent  books  that  stress  the  man  as  much  as  the 
work  include  Herbert  Howarth's  The  Irish  Writers:  Litera- 
ture and  Nationalism  iSSo-ig^o^  and  Sylvia  Beach's  Shake- 
speare and  Company.  In  the  former,  Joyce's  view  of  Parnell 
and  the  Kitty  O'Shea  fiasco  is  examined  as  one  segment  of 
a  study  of  contemporary  Irish  literary  attitudes.  In  the  latter, 
the  remarkable  woman  who  first  undertook  to  publish  Ulys- 
ses in  book  form  tells  of  Joyce  as  a  customer,  a  man  of 
letters,  and  then  as  an  ungrateful  and  suspicious  business 
man,  sure  that  his  publisher  was  not  playing  fair  with  him. 
In  addition  to  these  books,  volumes  have  appeared  in  several 
countries  testifying,  if  testimony  were  needed,  to  the  inter- 
national interest  Joyce  has  aroused.  In  the  United  States, 
Louis  Gillet's  essays  on  Joyce  the  friend,  the  father,  and  the 
literary  experimenter  have  been  translated  into  English  as 
Claybook  for  James  Joyce.  In  France,  Jean  Paris's  colorful,  if 
somewhat  disjointed,  James  Joyce  par  lui-meme  has  been 
published  in  the  Ecrivans  de  toujours  Series  and  is  now 
scheduled  for  translation  into  English  and  publication  in  the 
United  States.  In  Germany,  Wolfgang  Rothe  has  written 
a  book  called  James  Joyce. 

No  basic  change  in  the  biographical  view  of  James  Jovce 
would  have  been  possible,  however,  without  Richard  Ell- 


XVI  INTRODUCTION 

mann's  massive  and  splendid  biography  of  the  writer.  The 
result  of  many  years  of  investigation  and  intelligent  reflec- 
tion, it  amasses  so  large  a  body  of  hitherto  unknown  (or  at 
least  unpublished)  information  about  Joyce's  life  that  the 
mind  boggles  at  assimilating  it  all  at  one  reading.  For  the 
first  time  since  Joyce's  death,  it  seems  possible  now  to 
separate  biographical  fact  from  fiction,  man  from  the  myth. 

That  the  new  assessment  is  not  entirely  flattering  to  its 
subject  is  not  the  fault  of  the  biographer,  as  many  reviewers 
have  suggested.  Stuart  Gilbert's  earlier  edition  of  Joyce's 
letters  hinted  at  less-than-heroic  qualities  in  the  artist:  his 
pettiness  with  respect  to  recognizing  greatness  in  competitors, 
his  carelessness  with  other  people's  money,  his  suspicious 
nature,  and  his  rather  bourgeois  tastes  in  all  else  but  litera- 
ture. The  documents  in  the  Cornell  University  Library 
(newly  catalogued  in  a  handsome  volume  by  Robert  E. 
Scholes)  show  his  relationship  to  his  wife  to  have  been 
tempestuous  and  strange.  Ellmann's  book  verifies  and  gives 
pattern  to  many  traits  of  character  merely  gossiped  about 
earlier,  with  the  result  that  Joyce  is  reborn  as  man  first  and 
symbol  afterward.  The  reader  finds  that  Stanislaus  Joyce 
was  indeed  his  brother's  keeper  during  the  lean  early  years 
in  Trieste,  working  long  hours  so  that  Joyce  might  write, 
telling  lies  to  the  landlord  at  Joyce's  instigation  that  the 
Joyces  might  not  be  evicted,  squeezing  out  the  extra  coins 
that  the  tired  author  might  enjoy  another  night  of  drinking 
with  his  friends.  Joyce's  role  as  husband  and  father  is  less 
sympathetically  treated  here  than  in  the  Colums'  account, 
and  Jung's  view  of  Joyce's  mental  condition  —  his  role  in 
Lucia's  psychological  deterioriation  —  is  frankly  presented. 

Unlike  Herbert  Gorman,  who  stressed  the  Dedalean  as- 
pect of  Joyce,  Richard  Ellmann  gives  much  more  attention 
to  the  ways  in  which  his  subject  approximates  Leopold  Bloom 
in  attitude,  daily  habits,  tastes,  and  surroundings.  The  Irish 
writer  emerges  as  a  passionate  man,  often  frustrated;  a 
person  of  plebeian  appetites  satisfied  often  at  the  expense 


INTRODUCTION  XVll 

of  his  patrons;  a  person  with  an  unreahstic  valuation  of  his 
own  abihties  beyond  Kterature  (he  wanted  to  open  a  chain 
of  foreign  language  theaters  in  Dublin,  then  an  outlet  for 
Irish  tweeds  on  the  continent).  Gorman's  idealized  artificer 
has  been  downgraded.  The  artist  as  a  young  man  has  blended 
with  the  middle-aged  human  being  to  produce  a  portrait  at 
once  more  believable  and  less  romantic  than  the  stereotyped 
view  of  Stephen-Joyce.  It  is  probable  that  the  second  volume 
of  letters,  now  being  prepared  under  the  editorship  of  Ell- 
mann,  will  continue  the  process  of  humanization  begun  by 
this  fine  biography. 

The  chief  objection  to  Ellmann's  book  is  the  charge  often 
made  that  it  fails  to  do  justice  to  Joyce's  work  —  that  it  falls 
short  as  a  critical  evaluation.  Those  who  expect  elaborate 
critical  treatment  of  all  Joyce's  complicated  works  in  a  biog- 
raphy that  in  its  present  form  runs  to  many  more  than  eight 
hundred  pages  are  perhaps  unrealistic  in  their  standards.  To 
accomplish  merely  the  literary  detective  work  necessary  to 
present  the  facts  and  interpretations  in  this  biography  in- 
volves a  prodigious  amount  of  time,  labor,  and  intelligent 
organization.  To  expect  the  work  simultaneously  to  solve 
all  critical  problems  definitively  is  unfair.  Nor  does  it  take 
into  account  the  remarkable  contribution  to  criticism  of 
''The  Dead,"  for  instance,  and  of  Ulysses,  which  the  author 
makes  almost  incidentally,  as  commentary  on  the  biographi- 
cal information. 

Two  important  roads  lie  open  now  for  scholarship  on 
Joyce.  One  is  obviously  a  re-evaluation  and  perhaps  a  re- 
interpretation  of  all  Joyce's  writings  in  the  light  of  revela- 
tions in  Ellmann's  biography.  The  other  is  a  single,  unified, 
scholarly  edition  and  annotation  of  each  of  Joyce's  major 
works  under  the  supervision  of  a  general  editor.  It  is  unfor- 
tunate that  editions  of  Joyce's  writings  are  being  undertaken 
piecemeal,  with  no  uniformity  of  conception  and  no  central 
direction.  The  Critical  Writings  have  already  appeared,  edited 
by  Ellsworth  Mason  and  Richard  Ellmann.  Annotations  of 


XVlll  INTRODUCTION 

the  text  of  Dubliners  appear,  but  without  the  accompanying 
text.  An  edition  of  Chamber  Music  has  been  pubhshed  by 
one  university  press.  C.  G.  Anderson  is  completing  on  his 
own  an  edition  of  A  Portrait  of  the  Artist.  At  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, one  graduate  student  is  annotating  Ulysses;  another 
student  has  recently  completed  a  detailed  annotation  of  the 
''Circe"  episode  of  that  novel.  Finnegans  Wake  has  its 
Census  and  its  Skeleton  Key.  Certainly  the  time  has  come 
to  undertake  a  systematic  edition  of  the  entire  canon. 


II 


A  James  Joyce  Miscellany:  Third  Series  is  published  as  a 
direct  result  of  the  interest  shown  in  the  first  two  volumes 
of  the  series.  Beginning  as  a  paperback  issued  by  The  James 
Joyce  Society,  the  collection  is  now  brought  out  as  a  full- 
length  book  under  the  imprint  of  a  university  press.  The 
response  of  Joyceans  and  of  the  scholarly  public  in  general 
to  the  earlier  books  appears  to  support  the  tentative  con- 
clusion of  the  original  sponsors  that  a  need  exists  for  dis- 
semination in  permanent  form  of  the  best  available  writing 
on  Joyce. 

This  collection  continues  the  practice  of  publishing 
hitherto  unavailable  portions  of  Joyce's  own  work.  John 
Slocum  and  Herbert  Cahoon  introduce  and  offer  the  text 
of  an  unfinished  story  called  "Christmas  Eve";  Robert  E. 
Scholes  examines  the  unpublished  manuscripts  of  the  au- 
thor's satirical  poems.  In  addition,  Joseph  Prescott  continues 
his  elaborate  and  painstaking  analysis  of  proof  changes  in 
Ulysses  as  he  demonstrates  the  evolutionary  development  of 
Joyce's  characterization  of  Molly  Bloom. 

True  to  its  name,  this  volume  contains  a  representative 
miscellaneous  sampling  of  the  kind  of  scholarship  now  ap- 
pearing on  Joyce.  Several  contributions  deal  with  the  mean- 


INTRODUCTION  XIX 

ingful  relationship  between  the  novehst's  sources  and  his 
own  work:  James  Thrane's  extensive  treatment  of  the  back- 
grounds of  Joyce's  sermon  on  Hell  in  A  Portrait;  Trevor 
Lennam's  study  of  Shakespearean  analogies  in  an  episode 
of  Ulysses;  James  Baker's  view  of  Ibsen's  presence  in  Dub- 
liners;  and  papers  by  Morton  Paley  and  Robert  Gleckner 
showing  Blake's  contribution  to  the  thinking  and  the  art 
of  the  Irish  writer.  William  Empson's  piece  on  'The  Theme 
of  'Ulysses'  "  is  included  here  for  its  own  sake,  of  course, 
but  also  to  show  the  interesting  results  obtained  when  a  sen- 
sitive critical  mind  devotes  itself  to  speculating  on  the  re- 
lationship between  biography  and  fiction.  Historical  and 
geographical  allusions  to  Ireland  and  its  people  in  Finne- 
gans  Wake  are  the  province  of  Vivian  Mercier,  who,  with  his 
native  Irish  background,  is  in  an  excellent  position  to  trace 
their  significance.  Ruth  von  Phul  contributes  a  long  and 
provocative  article  on  the  structure  of  the  Wake  and  its 
patterned  consistency  with  other  patterns  in  the  author's 
life  and  works.  A  note  by  Richard  M.  Kain  illuminating 
a  passage  in  Ulysses,  and  David  Hayman's  study  of  the 
implications  of  staging  parts  of  Finnegans  Wake  complete 
the  collection. 

Though  A  James  Joyce  Miscellany  is  technically  the  organ 
of  a  "Society,"  it  has  attempted  since  its  establishment  to 
avoid  the  narrowness  of  coterie  publications.  Neither  avant 
garde  nor  stuffily  academic,  the  present  volume  includes 
pieces  by  a  distinguished  bibliographer  and  a  government 
official,  by  professors  and  by  a  graduate  student,  by  a  Texas 
housewife  and  an  English  critic  of  international  eminence. 
The  book  represents  no  ''school"  of  Joyce  criticism  nor  is  it 
the  spokesman  of  any  of  the  literary  and  personal  cliques 
that  claim  Joyce  as  their  own.  The  authors  come  from  Eng- 
land, Canada,  Ireland,  and  the  United  States.  The  criteria 
for  inclusion  are  high  quality,  reader  interest,  and  the  ap- 
propriateness of  the  contribution  to  the  effective  balance  of 
the  whole  volume. 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

For  the  first  time,  the  Miscellany  departs  from  the  practice 
of  using  only  unpubhshed  material  in  order  to  make  more 
readily  and  more  permanently  available  some  of  the  best 
writing  on  Joyce  done  in  the  past  decade.  Of  the  thirteen 
items  in  the  book,  those  by  Thrane,  Lennam  and  Empson 
have  previously  appeared  in  print. 

This  volume  is  dedicated  to  Harriet  Shaw  Weaver  whose 
generous  aid  to  James  Joyce  she  did  not  wish  to  publicize 
during  her  lifetime.  Cooperative  in  the  extreme,  the  late 
Miss  Weaver  gave  encouragement  to  the  proponents  of  a 
Joyce  Miscellany  and  in  her  role  as  administrator  of  the 
Joyce  Estate  helped  in  a  practical  way  by  consenting  to  the 
publication  of  many  unpublished  papers.  Yet  as  recently  as 
the  preparation  of  the  last  Miscellany,  she  resolutely  — 
brusquely,  in  fact  —  refused  to  allow  a  dedication  in  her 
honor.  She  would  not  even  permit  her  photograph  to  appear 
in  the  book  or  agree  to  do  a  memoir  of  Joyce  for  inclusion. 
Her  quiet  death,  like  her  quiet  life,  went  almost  unnoticed 
in  the  press.  It  is  noted  here,  and  in  the  dedication,  with 
deep  sadness. 


February  2,  1962 


A  James  Joyce  Miscellany 


THIRD      SERIES 


Christmas  Eve 


JAMES  JOYCE 


INTRODUCTION 

JOHN  J.  SLOCUM 
HERBERT  CAHOON 

I T  seems  certain  that  James  Joyce  originally  intended  that 
"Christmas  Eve"  would  be  included  in  his  book  of  stories, 
Dubliners,  first  published  in  1914.  The  only  surviving  manu- 
script of  the  story,  however,  is  quite  incomplete  and  there  is 
good  reason  to  believe  that  it  never  was  completed  as  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  narrative  that  is  printed  here  for  the  first 
time.  In  his  definitive  biography,  James  Joyce,  Richard  Ell- 
mann  says  that  Joyce  reshaped  the  story  shortly  after  its  be- 
ginnings and  that  it  appeared  in  Dubliners  as  *'Clay."  If  this 
was  the  case,  and  it  probably  was,  the  reshaping  was  thor- 
ough. The  prototype  of  the  story  changes  from  the  com- 
fortable Mr.  Callanan  (Joyce's  Uncle  William  Murray  — 
who  had  a  daughter,  Kathleen)  to  Maria,  the  "peace- 
maker," (a  distant  relative  not  further  identified  by  Ell- 
mann)  and  the  time  shifts  from  Christmas  to  Halloween. 
The  scenes  have  parallels  but  of  the  narrative  only  a  varia- 

HERBERT  CAHOON  is  OTL  the  Staff  of  The  Pierpont  Morgan  Library 
in  New  York.  He  collaborated  with  John  J.  Slocum  on  the  definitive 
bibliography  of  James  Joyce  {published  by  Yale  University  Press), 
and  he  is  recognized  as  a  leader  in  Joyce  scholarship,  john  j.  slo- 
cum is  former  president  of  The  James  Joyce  Society.  The  excellent 
collection  of  books,  manuscripts,  and  other  documents  that  he 
gathered  together  from  all  over  the  world  forms  the  nucleus  of 
the  Joyce  Collection  at  Yale  University.  Mr.  Slocum  now  works 
for  the  United  States  government. 

3 


4  SLOCUM    AND    CAHOON 

tion  of  the  phrase  by  which  Joe  describes  his  manager  re- 
mains in  ''Clay":  ''J^^  said  he  wasn't  so  bad  when  you  knew 
how  to  take  him,  that  he  was  a  decent  sort  so  long  as  you 
didn't  rub  him  the  wrong  way."  In  contrast  to  his  usual 
economical  habits,  Joyce  does  not  appear  to  have  used  any 
remaining  passages  or  phrases  from  "Christmas  Eve"  in  his 
other  works.  At  the  time  he  was  also  working  on  the  novel 
published  in  1944  as  Stephen  Hero,  a  large  portion  of  which 
has  not  survived. 

It  is  possible  to  date  ''Christmas  Eve"  as  having  been 
written  in  Trieste  and  Pola  during  the  eventful  months  of 
October  and  November,  1904.  Joyce  mentions  it  in  letters 
to  his  brother,  Stanislaus,  dated  31  October  and  19  No- 
vember, 1904,  which  are  now  in  the  Cornell  University  Li- 
brary. In  the  second  letter  Joyce  states,  "I  have  written  about 
half  of  'Xmas  Eve'."  Ellmann  gives  19  January,  1905  as  the 
date  for  the  completion  of  the  story;  on  this  day  Joyce  mailed 
it  to  Stanislaus  in  Dublin.  Upon  the  receipt  of  the  story, 
Stanislaus  tried  but  failed  to  place  it  in  The  Irish  Homestead 
which  had  recently  pubhshed  three  of  the  stories  that  were 
part  of  Dubliners.  He  may  also  have  tried  to  place  it  with 
other  periodicals. 

At  this  writing,  a  complete  manuscript  of  "Christmas 
Eve"  is  not  known  to  have  survived  nor  has  any  portion  of 
a  manuscript  of  "Clay."  This  incomplete  fair  copy  of 
"Christmas  Eve"  (and  there  may  have  been  more  of  this 
present  narrative)  was  probably  retained  by  Joyce  and  passed 
into  the  keeping  of  Stanislaus,  as  did  many  of  Joyce's  manu- 
scripts and  books,  when  the  James  Joyce  family  moved  from 
Trieste  to  Paris  in  1920. 

The  autograph  manuscript  of  "Christmas  Eve"  is  written 
on  one  side  of  four  unnumbered  leaves.  It  is  a  fair  copy  and 
contains  no  corrections  nor  additions.  Leaves  one,  two,  and 
four  are  in  the  Yale  University  Library;  leaf  three  is  in  the 
Cornell  University  Library;  all  are  published  here  with  the 
kind  permission  of  these  institutions  and  of  the  estate  of 


Christmas  Eve  5 

James  Joyce.  We  are  also  grateful  to  Professors  Richard  Ell- 
mann,  George  Harris  Healey,  Marvin  Magalaner,  and  Robert 
Scholes  for  their  generous  cooperation  and  assistance. 


CHRISTMAS     EVE 

Mr  Callanan  felt  homely.  There  was  a  good  fire  burning 
in  the  grate  and  he  knew  that  it  was  cold  outside.  He  had 
been  about  town  all  day  shopping  with  Mrs  Callanan  and 
he  had  met  many  friends.  These  friends  had  been  very 
friendly,  exchanging  the  compliments  of  the  season,  joking 
with  Mrs  Callanan  about  her  number  of  parcels,  and  pinch- 
ing Katsey's  cheek.  Some  said  that  Katsey  was  like  her 
mother  but  others  said  she  was  like  her  father  —  only  better- 
looking:  she  was  a  rather  pretty  child.  The  Callanans  —  that 
is,  the  father  and  mother  and  Katsey  and  an  awkward  brother 
named  Charlie  —  had  then  gone  into  a  cake-shop  and  taken 
four  cups  of  coffee.  After  that  the  turkey  had  been  bought 
and  safely  tucked  under  Mr  Callanan's  arm.  As  they  were 
making  for  their  crowded  tram  Mr  Callanan's  'boss'  passed 
and  saluted.  The  salute  was  generously  returned. 

—  That's  the  'boss'.  He  saluted  —  did  you  see?  — 

—  That  man?  — 

—  Ah,  he's  not  a  bad  sort  after  all  if  you  know  how  to 
take  him.  But  you  mustn't  rub  him  the  wrong  way.  — 

There  was  wood  in  the  fire.  Every  Christmas  Mr  Callanan 
got  a  present  of  a  small  load  of  wooden  blocks  from  a  friend 
of  his  in  a  timber-yard  near  Ringsend.  Christmas  would  not 
have  been  Christmas  without  a  wood-fire.  Two  of  these 
blocks  were  laid  crosswise  on  the  top  of  the  fire  and  were 
beginning  to  glow.  The  brave  light  of  the  fire  lit  up  a  small, 
well-kept  room  with  bees-waxed  borders  arranged  cleanly 
round  a  bright  square  carpet.  The  table  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  had  a  shaded  lamp  upon  it.  The  shade  set  obliquely 
sprayed  the  light  of  the  lamp  upon  one  of  the  walls,  reveal- 
ing a  gilt-framed  picture  of  a  curly-headed  child  in  a  night- 


6  SLOCUM    AND    CAHOON 

dress  playing  with  a  collie.  The  picture  was  called  ''Can't  you 
talk?" 

Mr  Callanan  felt  homely  but  he  had  himself  a  more  de- 
scriptive phrase  for  his  condition:  he  felt  mellow.  He  was  a 
blunt  figure  as  he  sat  in  his  arm-chair;  short  thick  legs  resting 
together  like  block  pipes,  short  thick  arms  hardly  crossing 
over  his  chest,  and  a  heavy  red  face  nestling  upon  all.  His 
scanty  hair  was  deciding  for  grey  and  he  looked  a  man  who 
had  come  near  his  comfortable  winter  as  he  blinked  his  blue 
eyes  thoughtfully  at  the  burning  blocks.  His  mind  was  va- 
cant. He  had  calculated  all  his  expenses  and  discovered  that 
all  had  been  done  well  within  the  margin.  This  discovery  had 
resulted  in  a  mood  of  general  charity  and  in  particular  desire 
for  some  fellow-spirit  to  share  his  happiness,  some  of  his 
old  cronies,  one  of  the  right  sort. 

Someone  might  drop  in:  Hooper  perhaps.  Hooper  and  he 
were  friends  from  long  ago  and  both  had  been  many  years 
in  the  same  profession.  Hooper  was  a  clerk  in  a  solicitor's 
office  in  Eustace  St  and  Mr  Callanan  was  a  clerk  in  a 
solicitor's  office  close  by  on  Wellington  Quay.  They  used 
often  meet  at  Swan's  public-house  where  each  went  every 
day  at  lunch-time  to  get  a  fourpenny  snack  and  a  pint  and 
when  they  met  they  compared  notes  astutely  for  they  were 
legal  rivals.  But  still  they  were  friends  and  could  forget  the 
profession  for  one  night.  Mr  Callanan  felt  he  would  like 
to  hear  Hooper's  gruff  voice  call  in  at  the  door  "Hello  Tom! 
How's  the  body?" 

The  kettle  was  put  squatting  on  the  fire  to  boil  for  punch 
and  soon  began  to  puff.  Mr  Callanan  stood  up  to  fill  his  pipe 
and  while  filling  it  he  gave  a  few  glances  at  Katsey  who  was 
diligently  stoning  some  raisins  on  a  plate.  Many  people 
thought  she  would  turn  out  a  nun  but  there  could  be  no 
harm  in  having  her  taught  the  typewriter;  time  enough  after 
the  holidays.  Mr  Callanan  began  to  toss  the  water  from 
tumbler  to  tumbler  in  a  manner  that  suggested  technical 
difficulties  and  just  at  that  moment  Mrs  Callanan  came  in 
from  the  hall. 


Christmas  Eve  7 

—  Tom!  here's  Mr  Hooper!  — 

—  Bring  him  in!   Bring  him  in!   I  wouldn't  doubt  you, 
Paddy,  when  there's  punch  going  — 

—  I'm  sure  I'm  in  the  way  .  .  .  busy  night  with  you,  Mrs 
Callanan  .  .  .  — 

—  Not  at  all,  Mr  Hooper.  You're  as  welcome  as  the  flowers 
in  May.  How  is  Mrs  Hooper? 

—  Ah!  we  can't  complain.  Just  a  touch  of  the  old  trouble, 
you  know  .  .  .  indigestion  — 

—  Nasty  thing  it  is!  She  is  quite  strong  otherwise?  — 

—  O,  yes,  tip-top  — 

—  Well,  sit  down,  my  hearty  and  make  yourself  at  home  — 

—  I'll  try  to,  Tom  — 


The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce 


ROBERT     SCHOLES 


I N  1904  when  James  Joyce  went  into  voluntary  exile  from 
Ireland  he  signalled  his  departure  with  the  broadside  verses 
called  The  Holy  Office^  and  in  1912  when  he  returned  to 
that  exile  after  a  sojourn  in  Dublin,  embittered  by  the  refusal 
of  the  Dublin  publishing  firm  Maunsel  and  Co.  to  publish 
DublinerSf  and  by  the  destruction  of  the  printed  sheets  of 
the  book  by  the  printer,  John  Falconer,  he  again  expressed 
his  feelings  with  a  broadside,  this  one  called  Gas  from  a 
Burner.  Joyce's  bibliographers  have  sought  exact  information 
on  the  printing  and  distribution  of  these  two  works  in  vain, 
but  materials  have  now  come  to  light,  in  the  collection  of 
James  Joyce's  papers  purchased  by  Cornell  University  from 
the  widow  of  Stanislaus  Joyce,  which  provide  us  for  the  first 
time  with  the  missing  details.  The  Holy  OfRce  was  printed 
for  Joyce  by  the  firm  of  L.  Smolars  in  Trieste  ^  (not  in  Pola 
as  Stanislaus  Joyce  recollected)  on  23  May  1905.  One  hun- 
dred copies  were  printed.^  James  Joyce  mailed  fifty  copies 
early  in  June  to  his  brother  Stanislaus  for  distribution  to 
interested  parties  in  Dublin.  The  remaining  fifty  he  retained 
to  distribute  himself.^ 


ROBERT  SCHOLES,  Assistdut  ProfcssoT  of  English  at  the  University 
of  Virginia,  will  teach  the  first  graduate  course  in  Irish  literature 
there  in  1^62-6^.  He  has  published  The  Cornell  Joyce  Collec- 
tion: A  Catalogue  and  other  writings  on  Joyce,  and  has  received 
an  ACLS  grant  for  a  textual  study  of  Dubliners. 

8 


The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce  9 

The  papers  now  at  Cornell  provide  us  with  even  more  in- 
formation about  Joyce's  second  broadside,  or  pasquinade  as 
he  called  it,  than  about  his  first.  The  first  draft  of  Gas  from 
a  Burner^  the  second  draft,  and  the  final  smooth  copy  with 
printer's  notations  are  all  available  now.  The  printer's  nota- 
tions indicate  that  one  hundred  copies  were  to  be  made,  and 
that  the  pasquinade  was  to  be  printed  ''nel  formato  carta 
lettera."  ^  Joyce's  address  in  Trieste  is  stamped  at  the  end  of 
the  manuscript,  near  these  notations.  The  notations  indicate 
that  Stanislaus  Joyce  was  correct  in  stating  that  the  printing 
was  done  in  Trieste  rather  than  the  Netherlands  as  has  some- 
times been  assumed.  The  distribution  of  this  broadside  was 
intended  by  James  Joyce  to  be  similar  to  that  of  The  Holy 
Office.  He  sent  forty  copies  to  his  brother  Charles  in  Dublin 
for  distribution  there  and  retained  the  balance  to  distribute 
himself.  Charles,  however,  seems  to  have  been  less  effective 
in  distributing  broadsides  than  his  brother  Stanislaus  had 
been  seven  years  earlier.  He  wrote  to  James  Joyce  on  15 
October  1912  to  the  effect  that  he  could  not  afford  stamps 
and  that  their  father  had  read  one  of  the  copies  and  protested 
vigorously  against  their  distribution.  Two  months  later 
Charles,  who  was  apparently  short  of  writing  paper,  sent  a 
letter  to  Stanislaus  written  on  the  back  of  a  printed  copy  of 
Gas  from  a  Burner.  It  seems  unlikely  that  many  of  those 
forty  copies  reached  their  destinations.^ 

The  two  earlier  drafts  of  this  broadside  which  are  now 
available  for  examination  throw  light  on  an  aspect  of  the 
work  which  is  not  bibliographical  but  critical  in  nature. 
The  speaker  of  this  mock  dramatic  monologue  has  usually 
been  identified  as  George  Roberts  of  Maunsel  and  Co.^  But 
the  preponderance  of  the  evidence  of  these  manuscripts 
indicates  that  Joyce  had  in  mind  not  Roberts  the  publisher 
but  John  Falconer,  the  Dublin  printer  who,  upon  learning 
that  Joyce  hoped  to  buy  the  sheets  from  him  and  publish 
the  work  himself,  burned  (or,  more  probably,  guillotined) 
the  sheets  of  Dubliners  which  he  had  printed.  It  was  this 


10  SCHOLES 

final  insult  and  blow  to  Joyce's  hopes  which  must  have 
weighed  most  heavily  on  his  mind  as  he  sat  in  the  railroad 
station  at  Flushing  in  the  Netherlands  and  began  to  com- 
pose his  pasquinade.  It  was  Falconer  and  the  ''malicious 
burning  of  the  ist  edition  of  Dubliners''  rather  than  Roberts 
to  whom  Joyce  referred  in  a  note  on  a  printed  copy  of  the 
broadsideJ  The  manuscripts  at  Cornell  bear  out  the  sup- 
position that  Falconer  is  indeed  the  speaker  of  the  poem,  for 
the  first  draft  is  entitled  'Talconer  addresses  the  Vigilance 
Committee"  and  the  second  draft  ''Falconer  on  'Dubliners'." 
A  reading  of  the  poem  shows  that  most  of  the  references, 
such  as  "I  printed,"  "my  press,"  "the  porch  of  my  printing 
institute,"  "My  Irish  foreman  from  Bannockburn,"  and  "Fll 
burn  that  book"  are  more  appropriate  in  the  mouth  of  the 
printer  than  in  that  of  the  publisher.  Moreover,  the  second 
draft,  the  title  of  which  still  preserves  Falconer's  name,  is 
virtually  the  finished  poem  in  its  ultimate  form,  though 
it  is  a  foul  copy  with  many  corrections. 

Why  then  was  Falconer's  name  dropped  from  the  title  of 
the  printed  version?  It  may  have  been  partly  prudence.  Joyce 
eliminated  the  names  of  Starkey  (Seumas  O'SulHvan),  Rus- 
sell (ae),  and  Magee  (John  Eglinton)  from  his  first  draft 
and  excluded  a  reference  to  the  "London  Emetic  Society" 
from  the  second.  Also,  it  is  possible  that  he  was  not  sure 
whether  Falconer  had  actually  printed  all  the  various  writers 
of  the  Irish  Literary  Movement  whom  Maunsel  published 
and  who  are  mentioned  in  the  broadside.  And  it  may  be  that 
the  reference  in  line  five  to  Joyce's  sending  his  book  to  the 
"I"  of  the  poem  —  which  is  more  strictly  appropriate  to 
Roberts  than  to  Falconer  —  bothered  Joyce.  He  may  even 
have  decided  to  allow  the  speaker  to  become  a  sort  of 
composite  figure  of  both  printer  and  publisher;  hence,  neces- 
sarily nameless.  But  it  seems  certain  that  Falconer  and  not 
Roberts  was  uppermost  in  his  mind  when  he  composed  his 
pasquinade.  After  all,  it  was  Falconer  who  "burned"  the 
printed  copies  of  Dubliners,  and  the  broadside  is  called  Gas 
from  a  Burner. 


The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce  ii 

The  first  draft  of  Gas  from  a  Burner  is  in  pencil  on  a 
printed  form  of  royalty  agreement.  The  manuscript  has  been 
worked  over  considerably.  In  the  text  printed  here  Joyce's 
deletions  have  been  placed  v^ithin  brackets,  his  insertions 
within  slant-lines.  The  most  noticeable  difference  between 
the  first  draft  and  all  later  versions  is  that  the  twenty-eight 
lines  which  open  the  broadside  are  missing  in  this  version. 
It  is  impossible  to  ascertain  now  whether  these  lines  were 
written  on  another  sheet  of  paper  which  has  since  been  lost 
or  if  the  poem  in  its  first  version  began  with  the  line,  ''To 
show  you  for  strictures  I  don't  give  a  button."  The  title  of 
the  first  draft  appears  in  the  right-hand  margin  of  the  manu- 
script. The  last  four  lines  are  carried  over  to  the  sheet  used 
for  the  second  draft. 


FALCONER     ADDRESSES     THE 
VIGILANCE     COMMITTEE 

To  show  you  for  stiictmes  I  dont  care  a  button 

J  piinted  the  verses  of  Mountainy  Mutton 

And  a  play  he  wrote  (youVe  lead  it  Tm  sure) 

Where  they  talk  oi  bastard,  hugger  &  whore 

And  a  drama  about  the  apostle  Paul 

And  some  woman's  legs  that  I  cant  recall. 

[I  printed  poets  sad,  silly  and  solemn 

And  I  printed  Patrick  What-Do-You-Colm] 

That  was  written  hy  Moore  —  a  country  gent 

Who  lives  on  his  property's  ten  per  cent 

And  I  printed  the  great  John  Milicent  Synge 

Who  soars  above  us  on  angeVs  wing 

In  the  famous  shift  that  he  pinched  as  swag 

From  MaunseVs  managers  travelling  bag. 

I  printed  mystical  books  in  dozens 

[By  Starkey,  Russell,  Magee  and  Cou] 

I  printed  the  table-books  of  Cousins 

Though  [as]  (I  ask  your  pardon)  as  for  their  verse 

'Twould  give  you  a  heartburn  on  your  arse 

Little  thin  booklets  published  at  one  and  three 

By  the  London  Emetic  Society. 

/I  printed  folklore  from  North  &  South 


12  SCHOLES 

By  Gregory  oi  the  Golden  Mouth 

I  printed  poets,  sad,  silly  &  solemn 

I  printed  Patrick-What-Do-You-Call-Him/ 

But  I  draw  the  line  at  that  bloody  iellow 

That  was  over  here  in  Austrian  Yellow, 

/Spouting  Italian  by  the  hour 

To  O'Leary  Curtis  and  John  Wyse  Power/ 

Writing  oi  Dublin,  [dear  and]  dirty  &  dear 

In  a  manner  no  decent  man  could  bear 

Shite  and  onions!  Do  you  think  Td  print 

The  name  oi  the  Wellington  Monument 

Sydney  Parade  and  the  Sandymount  tram 

Downes's  cake  shop  and  Williams'  jam 

I'm  damned  ii  I  do!  Tm  damned  to  blazes! 

Talk  about  Irish  names  oi  Places! 

It's  a  wonder  to  me  [to  complete  the  whole] 

/upon  my  Soul/ 
He  omitted  to  mention  Curly  s  Hole. 
No,  sir,  my  press  shall  have  no  share  in 
So  gross  a  libel  on  Mother  Erin 
I  pity  the  poor  that's  why  I  took 
A  redheaded  Scotchman  to  keep  my  book 
Poor  Sister  Scotland!  Her  doom  is  iell! 
She  cannot  iind  any  more  Stuarts  to  sell. 
My  conscience  is  fine  as  Chinese  silk 
My  heart  is  as  soit  as  buttermilk 
Colm  can  tell  you  I  made  a  rebate 
Oi  a  hundred  pounds  on  the  estimate 
I  gave  him  for  his  Irish  Review 
I  love  my  country  —  by  herrings  I  do 
O  you  should  see  what  tears  I  weep 
When  J  think  oi  the  emigrant  train  &  ship 
That's  why  I  send  over  the  countryside 
My  quite  illegible  railway  guide 
In  the  porch  oi  my  printing  institute 
The  sick  and  [indigent]  /deserving/  prostitute 
Can  play  [her]  /the/  game  oi  catch-as-catch-can 
With  her  tight-breeched,  British  artillery  man 
And  the  stranger  can  learn  the  giit  oi  the  gab 
From  the  drunken,  draggletail  Dublin  drab. 
Who  was  it  said:  Resist  not  evil? 
ni  burn  those  books  so  help  me  devil 
Til  sing  a  psalm  as  I  watch  them  burn 


The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce  13 

And  the  ashes  J']]  keep  in  a  one-handJed  urn 

TU  penance  do  with  farts  and  groans 

Kneeling  upon  my  marrowbones 

This  very  next  lent  I  will  unbare 

Penitent  buttocks  to  the  ail 

And  sobbing  beside  my  printing  press 

My  terrible  sin  I  will  confess. 

My  Irish  foreman  from  Bannockburn 

Will  dip  his  right  hand  in  the  urn 

And  sign  crisscross  with  reverent  thumb 

Memento  homo  upon  my  bum. 

The  second  draft  of  this  pasquinade  is  in  pencil  with  ink 
corrections  on  an  unsigned  copy  of  a  typed  agreement  be- 
tween Joyce  and  Maunsel  &  Co.  The  agreement  itself  throws 
some  light  on  one  of  the  minor  mysteries  of  Joyce  biography. 
One  set  of  page  proofs  of  Dubliners  printed  by  Falconer  has 
survived.  This  set  was  given  to  Grant  Richards  by  Joyce  and 
was  used  as  the  printer's  copy  for  the  first  published  edition 
of  Dubliners  in  1916.  Joyce  said  that  he  got  this  copy  from 
George  Roberts  ''by  a  ruse/'  but  the  nature  of  the  ruse  has 
remained  a  mystery.  The  form  on  which  Joyce  wrote  the 
second  draft  of  Gas  from  a  Burner  is  in  all  probabiHty  the 
missing  ruse.  Its  text  in  full  is  as  follows: 

30th  August,  1912. 
Agreement  and  Undertaking 


IN  consideration  of  Maunsel  and  Company  Limited 
undertaking  to  re-read  my  work  dubliners  (at  present 
regarded  by  them  as  containing  libellous  and/or  scandalous 
matter  statements  or  insinuations)  I,  james  joyce,  of 

agree  that  ( 1 )  I  will  carefully  examine 
the  proofs  of  the  said  work  and  delete  all  words  passages 
or  references  which  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  might  be 
considered  libellous  and/or  scandalous  making  the 
necessary  substitutions  therefor  and  I  further  agree  that 
(2)  the  book  shall  be  thereafter  read  by  Maunsel  and 
Company's  legal  advisers  and  that  I  will  thereafter  make 


14  SCHOLES 

any  further  excisions  and/or  alterations  which  they  may 
recommend. 

I  further  declare  that  I  enter  into  this  Agreement  of  my 
own  free  will  and  I  undertake  that  all  costs  of  carrying 
it  out  properly  incurred  by  Maunsel  and  Company  shall  be 
deducted  from  any  sum  that  may  accrue  to  me  if  and 
after  the  work  is  published  by  them. 

(Signature) 

In  the  presence  of 

(i) 

(2)  .:::::  : 


The  "proofs"  Joyce  asked  for  in  this  agreement  with  Maunsel 
may  well  be  those  which  Grant  Richards  used  for  the  printing 
of  Dubliners. 

The  text  of  the  second  draft  reveals  Joyce  polishing  his 
verse  and  sharpening  his  sarcasm.  The  unmetrical  *  Tittle 
thin  booklets  published  at  one  and  three"  disappears. 
''Mother  Erin"  becomes  a  "Stepmother";  the  audience  is 
addressed  not  as  "sir"  but  as  "ladies";  and  some  lines  are 
relocated  to  make  Synge  the  climactic  name  in  the  list  of 
Irish  authors  whom  the  speaker  does  print.  The  other  changes 
are  similar.  The  title  of  this  version  is  written  in  ink  at  the 
end  of  the  text  of  the  poem. 


FALCONER     ON     '  '  D U B L I N E R S  '  ' 

Ladies  and  gents  you  are  here  assembled 
To  hear  why  earth  and  heaven  trembled 
Because  of  the  black  and  sinister  arts 
Oi  an  Irish  writer  in  foreign  parts 
He  sent  me  a  book  ten  years  ago 
I  read  it  a  hundred  times  or  so 
Backwards  and  forwards,  down  and  up, 
Through  both  the  ends  of  a  telescope. 


The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce  15 

J  piinted  it  all  to  the  very  last  word 

But  hy  the  mercy  oi  the  Lord 

The  darkness  of  my  hiain  was  rent 

And  I  saw  the  writer's  ioul  intent 

But  I  owe  a  duty  to  Ireland 

I  hold  her  honour  in  my  hand 

This  lovely  land  that  always  sent 

Her  writers  and  artists  to  banishment 

And  in  a  spirit  oi  Irish  fun 

Betrayed  her  own  leaders  one  hy  one 

Twas  Irish  humour  wet  and  dry 

Flung  quicklime  into  ParnelYs  eye, 

'Tis  Irish  brains  that  save  horn  doom 

The  leaky  barge  oi  the  Bishop  oi  Rome 

For  everyone  knows  the  Pope  cant  belch 

Without  the  consent  oi  Billy  Walsh 

Oy  Ireland,  my  iirst,  my  only  love 

Where  Christ  and  Caesar  are  hand  and  glove 

0  lovely  land  where  the  shamrock  grows 
(AlJow  me,  ladies,  to  blow  my  nose) 

To  show  you  for  strictures  I  dont  care  a  button 
J  printed  the  poems  oi  Mountainy  Mutton 
And  a  play  he  wrote  (youVe  read  it  Tm  sure) 
Where  they  talk  oi  bastard,  bugger  &  whore 
And  a  [drama  about  the  apostle  Paul] 
/play  on  the  Word  and  Holy  Paul/ 
And  some  woman's  legs  that  I  cant  recall 
Written  by  Moore  —  [the  littery  gent] 
/a  genuine  gent/ 
That  lives  on  his  property's  ten  per  cent 

1  printed  mystical  books  in  dozens 
I  printed  the  table-book  oi  Cousins 
Though  (asking  your  pardon)  as  for  the  verse 
'Twould  give  you  a  heartburn  on  your  arse 

J  printed  folklore  from  North  &  South 

By  Gregory  oi  the  Golden  Mouth 

I  printed  poets,  sad,  silly  and  solemn 

I  printed  Patrick  What-do-you-CoIm 

I  printed  the  great  John  Milicent  Synge 

Who  soars  above  us  on  angel's  wing 

In  the  playboy  shiit  that  he  pinched  as  swag 

From  MaunseVs  manager's  travelling-bag. 


l6  SCHOLES 

But  I  draw  the  line  at  that  bloody  fellow 

That  was  over  here  dressed  in  Austrian  yellow, 

Spouting  Itah'an  by  the  hour 

To  O'Leaiy  Curtis  and  John  Wyse  Power 

And  writing  oi  Dubhn,  dirty  and  dear, 

In  a  manner  no  [decent  man]  could  bear. 

/blackamore  printer/ 
Shite  and  onions!  Do  you  think  Td  print 
The  name  oi  the  Welh'ngton  Monument 
Sydney  Parade  and  the  Sandymount  tram 
Downes's  cakeshop  and  WiUiams's  jam 
Fm  damned  ii  1  do  —  Ym  damned  to  blazes  — 
Talk  about  Irish  Names  of  Places 
Ifs  a  wonder  to  me  —  upon  my  soul  — 
He  iorgot  to  mention  Curly  s  Hole. 
No,  ladies,  my  press  shaJI  have  no  share  in 
So  gross  a  libel  on  Stepmother  Erin 
I  pity  the  poor:  that's  why  I  took 
A  red-headed  Scotchman  to  keep  my  book 
Poor  sister  Scotland!  Her  doom  is  fell, 
She  cannot  End  any  more  Stuarts  to  sell. 
My  conscience  is  fine  as  Chinese  silk 
My  heart  is  as  soft  as  buttermilk 
Colm  can  tell  you  I  made  a  rebate 
Of  one  hundred  pounds  on  the  estimate 
I  gave  him  for  his  Irish  Review 
I  love  my  country  —  by  herrings  I  do! 
I  wish  you  could  see  what  tears  I  weep 
When  I  think  of  the  emigrant  train  and  ship 
That's  why  I  publish  far  and  wide 
My  quite  illegible  railway  guide 
In  the  porch  of  my  printing  institute 
The  poor  and  deserving  prostitute 
Plays  every  night  at  catch-as-catch-can 
With  her  tight-breeched,  British  artilleryman 
And  the  foreigner  learns  the  gift  of  the  gab 
From  the  drunken,  draggletail,  Dublin  drab 
Who  was  it  said:  Resist  not  evil? 
rU  burn  [those]  /that/  [books]  /book/  so  help  me  devil 
ril  sing  a  psalm  as  I  watch  them  burn 
And  the  ashes  FU  keep  in  a  one-handled  urn 
FU  penance  do  with  farts  and  groans 


The  Broadsides  of  James  Joyce  17 

Kneeling  upon  my  marrowbones. 
This  very  next  Lent  I  will  unbare 
My  penitent  buttocks  to  the  air 
And  sobbing  beside  my  printing  press 
My  awful  sin  I  will  confess 
My  Irish  foreman  from  Bannockburn 
Shall  dip  his  right  hand  in  the  urn 
And  sign  crisscross  with  reverent  thumb 
Memento  Homo  upon  my  bum. 

James  Joyce 
15  .  IX  .  912 

(written  in  the  train  between 
flushing  and  salzburg ) 

There  is  a  third  manuscript  of  these  verses  at  Cornell, 
written  in  ink  in  Joyce's  clearest  hand.  This  copy  (with  the 
title,  Gas  from  a  Burner ^  in  the  left  margin)  bears  the  print- 
er's notations  mentioned  above.  As  it  is  not  very  different 
from  the  second  draft  (except  in  its  generally  heavier  end- 
punctuation)  and  almost  identical  with  the  published  ver- 
sion, it  is  not  reproduced  here.  Of  interest,  however,  is  one 
final  change  Joyce  made.  Crossing  out  in  line  eleven  the 
speaker's  reference  to  his  "brain,"  Joyce  substituted  the  word 
"mind,"  diminishing  with  one  last  flick  of  his  pen  the  con- 
notation of  thought  which  he  was  willing  to  allow  attributed 
to  John  Falconer,  the  "burner"  of  Dubliners. 


NOTES 

1 .  I  am  indebted  to  Ottocaro  Weiss  of  New  York  and  Trieste 
for  the  identification  of  this  firm  as  a  Triestine  stationer  and 
printer. 

2.  This  information  is  derived  from  a  printer's  slip  pasted 
on  to  the  fourth  and  last  page  of  a  manuscript  of  The  Holy 
Office  in  the  holograph  of  James  Joyce  and  signed  by  him.  The 
earlier  and  abortive  Dublin  printing  of  this  broadside  is  treated 
by  M.  J.  O'Neill  in  the  James  Joyce  Review^  m  (1959),  1-2. 

3.  Joyce's  detailed  instructions  to  Stanislaus  were  sent  in  a 
series  of  four  postcards  dated  from  27  May  to  11  June  1905. 


l8  SCHOLES 

4.  In  letter  size.  This  notation  raises  another  difficulty.  The 
printed  broadside  does  not  seem  to  correspond  to  what  one 
assumes  ''letter  size"  must  mean.  Gas  from  a  Burner  is  printed 
on  one  side  of  a  single  sheet  almost  two  feet  in  length  (see  John 
J.  Slocum  and  Herbert  Gaboon,  A  Bibliography  of  James  Joyce, 
1 882-1  g/^i,  item  A-7).  But,  since  the  printed  version  differs 
from  the  printer's  copy-text  by  a  dozen  corrections,  mostly  in 
punctuation,  it  is  possible  that  Joyce  corrected  proofs  and 
changed  the  designated  format  as  well. 

5.  These  letters  of  15  October  and  9  December  1912  are  in 
the  Cornell  Collection. 

6.  See,  for  example,  W.  Y.  Tindall's  edition  of  Chamber 
Music  (New  York,  1954),  p.  9;  and  Ellmann  and  Mason,  The 
Critical  Writings  of  James  Joyce  (New  York,  1959),  pp.  242 
ff. 

7.  Quoted  in  Slocum  and  Cahoon,  A-y. 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead 

A   STUDY   OF    DUBLINERS 

JAMES     R.     BAKER 


I N  1900  Joyce  wrote  two  essays  in  which  he  announced  an 
unquahfied  admiration  for  Ibsen^s  later  plays.  The  first, 
"Drama  and  Life/'  dismisses  the  Greek  and  EKzabethan 
traditions  as  outmoded  and  praises  Ibsen  for  finding  ''the 
deathless  passions"  amid  the  commonplaces  of  modern  bour- 
geois existence.  ''Ibsen's  New  Drama/'  the  second,  is  an 
eulogistic  review  of  When  We  Dead  Awaken^  which  con- 
cludes that  appreciation  is  the  only  fitting  response  to  the 
"perfect"  dramatist  and  "one  of  the  world's  great  men." 
"The  Day  of  the  Rabblement"  and  the  famous  letter  to 
Ibsen,  both  written  the  following  year,  continue  with  un- 
checked enthusiasm.  According  to  Richard  Ellmann's  biog- 
raphy, Joyce  carried  his  crusade  to  the  Continent  where  he 
frequently  defended  Ibsen  or  sought  to  win  new  admirers. 
As  late  as  1936  (during  the  last  stages  of  work  on  Finnegans 
Wake)  we  find  him  accepting  with  delight  a  comparison 
between  Ibsen  and  himself,  on  another  occasion  insisting 
that  Ibsen  is  "head  and  shoulders"  above  Shakespeare,  and 
on  still  another  arguing  with  James  Stephens  over  the  merits 
of  Little  Eyolf} 

JAMES  R.  BAKER  is  in  the  Department  of  Humanities  of  San 
Diego  State  College.  He  has  published  several  pieces  on  Joyce  in 
the  Arizona  Quarterly  and  elsewhere.  At  present,  he  is  writing 
a  critical  study  of  William  Golding. 

19 


20  BAKER 

The  influence  of  Ibsen  on  the  theme  and  structure  of 
Exiles  is  a  long-estabhshed  recognition  in  Joycean  criticism.^ 
In  his  chapter  on  'The  Backgrounds  of  The  Dead'  "  Ell- 
mann  extends  the  range  of  influence  by  sketching  the  pres- 
ence of  Ibsen's  resurrection  motif  in  a  few  of  the  stories  of 
Dubliners  and  in  all  subsequent  work,  but  the  natural  as- 
sociation of  drama  with  drama  continues  to  support  the  no- 
tion that  the  play  is  the  only  really  blatant  example  of  Joyce's 
debt. 

By  the  end  of  1914  Joyce  had  pubhshed  Chamber  Music, 
finished  Dubliners,  Portrait  of  the  Artist,  and  Exiles,  as  well 
as  the  early  plans  for  Ulysses.  In  a  period  of  fourteen  years, 
then,  he  conceived  his  basic  subjects  and  techniques.  It 
would  be  surprising  to  find  that  his  regard  for  Ibsen  had  a 
significant  function  only  in  the  case  of  the  play.  I  wish  to 
argue  here  that  Dubliners  affords  not  only  an  earlier  but  an 
even  more  radical  example  than  Exiles.  Like  Ibsen's  ''social" 
dramas,  Dubliners  is  an  expose  of  the  paralysis  of  spirit 
which  binds  the  urban  bourgeois.  Less  obvious,  the  basic 
themes,  the  structural  design,  and  symbolism  of  the  stories 
parallel  Ibsen's  work  in  the  group  of  plays  beginning  with  A 
DolVs  House  and  ending  with  When  We  Dead  Awaken. 
The  last  play  is  most  crucial  because  it  provided  for  Joyce  a 
neatly  condensed  version  of  the  symbolic  parable  he  was  to 
repeat  all  his  life,  from  Chamber  Music  through  Finnegans 
Wake. 

In  his  review  of  When  We  Dead  Awaken  Joyce  notes 
that  this  play  is  the  final  member  in  a  succession  of  eleven 
works  dealing  with  "modern  life,"  "a  grand  epilogue  to  its 
ten  predecessors."  For  Ibsen  it  was  the  culmination  of  a 
theme  which  had  occupied  him  at  least  twenty  years  —  the 
vital  ranges  of  experience  beyond  the  lifeless  region  of  the  bour- 
geoisie and  the  problem  for  the  artist  of  striking  a  balance 
between  the  dangers  of  rigid  isolation  and  debilitating  in- 
volvement. Joyce  finds  in  it  the  embodiment  of  his  own  pre- 
occupations: the  problem  of  the  artist's  relationship  to  a 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  21 

spiritually  mean  society,  the  penalties  of  aloofness  from  the 
common  stream  of  life,  and,  most  pertinent  for  the  stories 
shaping  in  his  mind,  a  comprehensive  dramatization  of  the 
pitiful  failure  of  men  to  awaken  from  the  somnolence  which 
holds  them  among  the  living-dead. 

Joyce  begins  his  summary  of  the  plot  by  pointing  out  that 
it  is  composed  of  a  series  of  dialogues  in  which  the  major 
characters,  the  sculptor  Rubeck  and  his  former  model,  Irene, 
produce  in  each  other  the  realization  that  they  have  "for- 
feited" their  hves:  Rubeck,  for  the  sake  of  his  art;  Irene,  be- 
cause she  has  held  herself  aloof  in  an  unrequited  passion 
for  Rubeck.  The  result  is  that  both  are  essentially  "dead." 
The  same  failure  is  immanent  in  the  psychology  of  the  minor 
figures,  Maia,  Rubeck's  young  and  bored  wife,  and  Ulfheim, 
the  bitter  recluse  who  has  been  rejected  by  his  beloved.  The 
two  sets  of  characters  form  a  counterpoint  built  upon  the 
single  theme  of  resurrection.  Joyce  demonstrates  his  com- 
plete understanding  by  selecting  for  quotation  the  lines 
which  most  clearly  define  the  burden  of  a  complex  and  (at 
least  in  the  William  Archer  translation)  heavily  sentimental 
play: 

IRENE:  We  see  the  irretrievable  only  when  {breaks  short 

off)- 
RUBECK:  {looks  inquiringly  at  her).  When? 
IRENE:  When  we  dead  awaken.^ 

From  the  concluding  scenes  he  adeptly  chooses  the  follow- 
ing: 

IRENE:  The  love  that  belongs  to  the  life  of  earth  —  the 
beautiful,  miraculous  life  of  earth  —  the  inscrutable  life  of 
earth  —  that  is  dead  in  both  of  us. 

RUBECK:  {throwing  his  arms  violently  about  her).  Then 
let  two  of  the  dead  — us  two  — for  once  live  life  to  its 
uttermost,  before  we  go  down  to  our  graves  again. 

In  his  analysis  of  the  characters  the  reviewer  offers  an  in- 
terpretation of  Rubeck  which  is  something  of  a  departure 


22  BAKER 

from  Ibsen's  obvious  projection  of  himself  —  the  aging  artist 
who  reahzes  too  late  the  price  of  isolation  and  dedication  to 
aesthetic  motives.  ''Arnold  Rubeck/'  comments  Joyce,  "is 
not  intended  to  be  a  genius,  as  perhaps  Eljert  Lovborg  [in 
Hedda  Gabler]  is.  Had  he  been  a  genius  like  Eljert  he  would 
have  understood  in  a  truer  way  the  value  of  his  life.  But  .  .  . 
the  facts  that  he  is  devoted  to  his  art  and  that  he  has  at- 
tained to  a  degree  of  mastery  in  it  —  mastery  of  hand  linked 
with  limitation  of  thought  —  tells  us  that  there  may  be  lying 
dormant  in  him  a  capacity  for  greater  life,  which  may  be 
exercised  when  he,  a  dead  man,  shall  have  risen  from  among 
the  dead'''*'  (italics  mine).  Thus  Rubeck's  masterpiece,  a 
statue  called  ''The  Resurrection/'  becomes  the  ironic  symbol 
of  the  divorce  between  his  art  and  his  life.  His  personal 
resurrection  comes  too  late,  on  the  eve  of  his  death.  As  he 
ascends  the  "Peak  of  Promise"  with  Irene,  they  are  buried 
in  the  descending  snow  of  an  avalanche. 

I  have  italicized  the  final  portion  of  Joyce's  comment  on 
Rubeck  because  it  defines  with  faultless  precision  the  status 
of  the  characters  in  Dubliners.  Most  of  them  are  summoned 
by  these  words:  the  boy  of  "The  Sisters"  and  "Araby," 
Evehne,  Little  Chandler,  Maria,  Mr.  Duffy,  the  wardmen 
of  "Ivy  Day  in  the  Committee  Room,"  and  Gabriel  Con- 
roy.  Each  of  these  is  "an  outcast  from  life's  feast,"  a  member 
of  the  great  host  of  the  living-dead.  For  Joyce,  as  for  Ibsen, 
"the  timeless  passions"  are  "lying  dormant"  in  these  drab 
lives.  The  Norwegian  master  offered  eleven  plays;  Joyce 
offers  fifteen  miniature  dramas  on  the  same  theme.  Com- 
menting on  the  relations  between  drama  and  modern  hfe, 
the  young  essayist  of  1900  formulates  a  statement  of  the 
aesthetic  motives  he  was  to  pursue  so  consistently  in  Dub- 
liners. "Still  I  think  out  of  the  dreary  sameness  of  existence, 
a  measure  of  dramatic  life  may  be  drawn.  Even  the  most 
commonplace,  the  deadest  among  the  living,  may  play  a  part 
in  a  great  drama."  ^  Thus  the  real  unity  of  Dubliners  derives 
from  the  condensed  symboHsm  of  Ibsen's  last  play.  The 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  23 

technique  of  epiphany  is  only  a  means  to  an  end,  the  pattern 
of  eastward  and  westward  movements  ^  only  an  adjunct  to 
the  Ibsenesque  juxtaposition  of  life  and  death,  and  the 
Homeric  counterparts^  (if  they  exist  at  all)  are  occasional 
analogies  which  function  within  the  larger  scheme  provided 
by  the  dramatist's  example. 

When  We  Dead  Awaken  utilizes  the  same  key  metaphor 
which  in  one  form  or  another  appears  in  its  predecessors  — 
the  comparison  of  the  unawakened  living  with  the  dead.  In 
A  DolVs  House  Nora's  existence  is  clearly  a  living  death. 
Mrs.  Alving  of  Ghosts  adheres  to  a  restrictive  and  Puritani- 
cal code  of  moral  duties  which  prevents  her  from  entering 
into  a  vital  life.  Paralyzed  herself,  she  thus  becomes  re- 
sponsible for  the  passionate  indulgences  of  her  husband  and 
the  consequent  death  of  both  husband  and  son.  The  dor- 
mant passions  of  Solness,  the  architect  of  The  Master 
Builder,  are  awakened  by  the  lively  Hilda.  In  a  strange  final 
scene  he  escapes  from  the  shroud  which  practical  and  moral 
demands  have  closed  about  him,  and  at  the  moment  of  his 
death  rises  to  his  former  greatness. 

It  is  obvious  that  Joyce  adopted  for  Duhliners  the  basic 
metaphor  which  pervades  this  entire  group  of  plays.  But  he 
also  borrowed  from  them  a  device  which  is  commonly  traced 
to  another  source,  his  Catholic  training.  It  was  in  Ibsen, 
however,  that  he  found  the  basis  for  the  technique  of 
"epiphany."  When  We  Dead  Awaken  is  characteristic  in  its 
structure  —  a  pattern  in  which  the  central  character,  through 
the  stress  of  some  unexpected  crisis,  is  driven  to  an  epiphanaic 
moment  that  reveals  him  as  spiritually  dead.  The  same 
structural  design  is  typical  of  the  stories  in  Duhliners.  In 
''Araby"  and  ''A  Painful  Case,"  for  example,  the  initial 
vignette  of  paralysis  is  followed  by  an  excruciating  denoue- 
ment in  which  reality  rushes  in  upon  the  unprepared  con- 
sciousness of  the  central  character.  Where  the  revelation  is 
for  the  reader  alone  (*'Two  Gallants"  or  ''Grace"),  the  per- 
sistent ironic  metaphor  emerges  in  a  climactic  scene.  Con- 


24  BAKER 

ditioned  by  his  Christian  education,  Joyce  calls  the  instant 
of  perception  ''epiphany/'  and  so  underscores  the  saving 
quality  of  a  revelation  containing  the  seeds  not  only  of 
suffering  but  resurrection.  While  his  term  is  clearly  borrowed 
from  the  Christian  context,  the  applied  technique  of 
epiphany  is  an  adaptation  of  the  structural  principle  com- 
mon to  Ibsen's  dramas.  It  is  v^^orth  noting  that  Joyce  wrote 
most  of  the  short  sketches  he  called  "Epiphanies"  in  a  three 
year  period  beginning  in  1900,  at  the  very  same  time  he  was 
absorbing  Ibsen's  work.  One  of  the  "Epiphanies"  is  about 
Ibsen  himself.  And  some  of  them  image  situations  which 
foreshadow  the  stories  in  Dubliners:  A  "sudden  spiritual 
manifestation"  reveals  the  drabness  or  vulgarity  of  things,  a 
latent  passion  for  freedom,  an  abrupt  awakening  to  life's 
possibilities.^  Psychological  suffering  during  the  experience  of 
epiphany  and  the  promise  of  belated  resurrection  (so  com- 
mon in  Dubliners)  is  stock  Ibsen.  One  can  imagine  the  de- 
light with  which  Joyce  discovered  in  the  plays  a  convergence 
of  the  Christian,  the  secular,  and  the  aesthetic. 

He  must  have  found  equally  appealing  the  rich  irony 
which  Ibsen  develops  again  and  again  by  allowing  the  voices 
of  the  dead  to  inform  the  living-dead.  In  A  DolVs  House,  for 
example,  the  very  presence  of  Dr.  Rank  in  the  Helmer  house- 
hold stresses  the  urgency  of  Nora's  awakening.  Rank  is  fated 
to  live  with  the  knowledge  that  he  must  soon  die.  Afflicted 
with  a  steadily  advancing  paralysis,  a  heritage  from  his 
father's  indulgences,  he  adores  beauty  and  vitality.  On  the 
eve  of  his  death,  he  tells  Nora  of  his  love  for  her.  Thus  do 
the  lost  and  ghostly  passions  of  the  dead  become  the  agents 
of  resurrection.  Hedda  Gabler's  suicide  follows  quickly  upon 
her  recognition  that  the  dead  Lovborg  embodies  the  passion- 
ate creativity  which  is  foreign  to  the  listless  bourgeoisdom 
she  inhabits.  The  device  is  characteristic,  and  the  examples 
can  be  multiplied. 

With  ingenious  variation  Joyce  employs  in  Dubliners  the 
same  means  of  achieving  irony  and  pathos.  And  just  as  in 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  25 

Ibsen  the  effect  is  to  reinforce,  either  for  the  reader  or  a 
character  suffering  epiphany,  the  comparison  of  Uving  and 
dead.  In  both  "The  Sisters"  and  "Araby"  the  frightening 
portent  of  paralysis  and  death  is  represented  in  the  figure  of 
a  dead  priest,  and  in  each  case  it  provokes  in  the  child  a  bid 
for  escape.  Eveline,  appalled  by  the  fate  of  her  dead  mother, 
attempts  to  break  out  but  fails.  In  ''A  Painful  Case"  the 
ghost  of  Emily  Sinico  illuminates  for  Duffy  his  outcast  state 
and  his  status  as  one  of  the  living-dead.  A  similar  humiliation 
comes  to  Gabriel  Conroy  as  his  aerial  and  frigid  soul  is 
chastened  by  the  visit  of  Michael  Furey. 

If  we  consider  the  problem  which  occupied  Joyce's  youth 
—  his  passionate  quest  for  freedom  from  home,  fatherland, 
and  church  —  the  appeal  of  Ibsen  seems  inevitable.  In  the 
invidious  metaphor  which  dominates  the  later  plays,  and 
in  the  dramatic  evolution  designed  to  torture  and  expose 
bourgeois  lassitude,  Joyce  found  confirmation  of  his  personal 
and  aesthetic  motives.  On  the  very  eve  of  exile,  as  he  pre- 
pared to  encounter  ''the  reality  of  experience"  and  resolved 
to  forge  ''the  uncreated  conscience"  of  his  race,  he  found  in 
Ibsen  the  techniques  that  were  to  carry  him  to  fulfillment. 
Within  the  Ibsen  framework  he  saw  the  possibility  of  in- 
dulging all  his  predilections:  his  delight  in  ironic  humor,  his 
nearly  obsessive  awareness  of  the  pathos  of  smothered  poten- 
tials and  dreams,  his  Jesuit  penchant  for  moral  analysis  and 
categorizing,  and,  under  the  aegis  of  dramatic  "objectivity," 
an  opportunity  for  persecution  of  "the  most  belated  race  in 
Europe." 

Interpretation  of  Dubliners  in  the  light  of  the  Ibsen  para- 
ble often  resolves  points  of  disagreement  among  the  com- 
mentators.^ The  early  dismissal  of  the  collection  as  an 
example  of  pure  naturahsm  has  given  way  (and  properly  so) 
to  close  analysis  and  the  search  for  a  pervading  and  unifying 
symbolism.  The  usual  conclusion  is  that  the  symbology  stems 
mainly  if  not  exclusively  from  Joyce's  Catholic  background. 
Some  of  the  interpretations  offered  on  this  basis  are  useful, 


26  BAKER 

but  where  Joyce  utilizes  the  Christian  paraphemaha  it  func- 
tions at  a  secondary  level  and  within  the  dominant  Ibsen 
scheme.  The  two  converge  in  Dubliners,  and  they  meet  again 
in  all  the  subsequent  works.  Every  story  in  Dubliners  de- 
pends to  one  degree  or  another  on  the  Ibsen  formula,  but 
the  most  subtle  uses  of  his  example  appear  in  stories  where 
there  is  little  or  no  consciously  articulated  epiphany.  I  would 
like  to  examine  a  few  of  these  in  order  to  suggest  some  of 
the  modes  of  application. 

In  "An  Encounter/'  "After  the  Race,"  "Two  Gallants/' 
"The  Boarding  House/'  "Counterparts/'  and  "A  Mother" 
there  is  little  so  immediately  striking  as  the  patterns  found 
in  "A  Painful  Case"  or  "The  Dead."  Yet  these  stories  share 
the  common  pattern,  and  one  has  to  shift  the  counters  only 
slightly  to  see  the  Ibsen  metaphor:  Dublin  is  the  realm  of 
the  living-dead,  paralysis  exists  on  every  level  of  experience 
and  at  every  stage  of  life.  This  same  group  is  also  typical  in 
that  the  central  characters  fail  to  develop  a  conscious  recog- 
nition of  their  state  —  even  though  their  situation  invariably 
offers  the  opportunity.  The  "epiphany"  generally  resides  in 
a  concatenation  of  events  which  is  wasted  upon  the  person 
most  vitally  concerned.  The  majority  of  Dubliners  remain 
"dead"  and  pass  by,  like  unimpressionable  spirits,  the  very 
means  of  their  resurrection. 

"Two  Gallants,"  ostensibly  a  bitterly  realistic  story  of 
moral  degradation,  depends  for  its  effects  on  a  harmonious 
blend  of  atmosphere  and  characterization.  Its  ironies  are  far 
more  subtle  than  those  suggested  by  the  title.  The  adventure 
begins  as  "the  grey  web  of  twilight"  passes  across  "the  large 
faint  moon  circled  [portentously]  with  a  double  halo."  As 
the  two  young  men  walk  through  the  dim  streets  they  hear 
the  melancholy  tones  of  "Silent,  O  Moyle,"  the  air  which 
later  controls  the  movements  of  Lenehan  in  his  lonely 
wandering.  Characterized  as  a  leech,  Lenehan  is  prematurely 
gray  and  his  face  is  "winnowed  of  vigour,"  Though  he  is  only 
thirty-one  he  is  "vanquished"  and  "weary."  Unattached,  job- 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  27 

less,  "a  sporting  vagrant"  associated  with  "racing  tissues/'  he 
lives  for  the  most  part  off  of  loans  and  handouts  from  dis- 
reputable friends.  His  companion  Corley  is  a  burly  automa- 
ton (his  bearing  a  reflection  of  his  egocentricity)  who  lives 
by  informing  the  police  and  by  the  exploitation  of  prosti- 
tutes. Spiritually,  both  men  are  ghouls:  Corley  feeds  upon 
the  sterile  souls  of  his  "tarts,"  and  Lenehan,  volitionless  him- 
self, clings  to  Corley  for  subsistence.  As  Lenehan  sits  in  the 
shop  waiting  for  Corley's  return,  he  participates  vicariously: 
"In  his  imagination  he  beheld  the  pair  of  lovers  walking 
along  some  dark  road;  he  heard  Corley's  voice  in  deep  ener- 
getic gallantries  and  saw  again  the  leer  of  the  young  woman's 
mouth."  He  moves  into  the  street  and  takes  his  stand  in  the 
shadow  of  a  lamp  where  "he  suffered  all  the  pangs  and  thrills 
of  his  friend's  situation  as  well  as  those  of  his  own."  When 
Corley  returns  in  triumph,  he  stares  "grimly  before  him" 
and  "with  a  grave  gesture"  shows  to  his  "disciple"  the  small 
gold  coin  he  has  taken  from  the  girl.  And  so  the  imagery  of 
death  and  the  grave  serves  to  symbolize  the  eerie  and  morbid 
exchanges  in  which  the  spiritually  dead  take  from  one  an- 
other a  corrupt  and  enfeebling  subsistence.  Corley's  final 
gesture  is  made  in  confident  pride  and  Lenehan,  the  leech, 
congratulates  him.  Neither  youth  is  aware  of  the  spiritual 
somnolence  which  their  evening  reflects. 

Several  of  the  commentaries  on  "Clay"  have  insisted  upon 
an  analogy  between  Maria,  the  virginal  peacemaker,  and 
Mary,  the  Holy  Virgin.  But  in  the  case  of  Maria  there  has 
been  no  miraculous  birth;  she  has  no  husband,  secular  or 
spiritual;  she  has  been  a  nurse  for  Joe  and  Alphy,  but  never 
a  mother.  Maria  has  rejected  marriage  and  takes  pride  in  her 
sterile  body  and  her  sterile  life.  As  she  dresses  for  the  Hallows 
Eve  party  she  looks  "with  quaint  affection  at  the  diminutive 
body"  and  finds  it  "a  nice  tidy  little  body."  And  as  she 
reviews  her  petty  plans  for  the  evening  she  thinks,  "how 
much  better  it  was  to  be  independent  and  to  have  vour  own 
money  in  your  pocket."  This  deadly  pride  in  virginity  and 


28  BAKER 

independence  is  complimented  by  Maria's  reputation  as  a 
"peacemaker."  At  the  "Dublin  by  Lamplight"  laundry  she 
settles  the  disputes  of  the  women,  and  at  the  Donnelly's 
home  she  smothers  several  of  Joe's  angry  outbursts.  In  short, 
her  reputation  stems  from  her  abhorrence  of  passion  of  any 
kind.  She  can  endure  no  encroachment  upon  the  drab  and 
static  sensibility  which  marks  her  as  one  of  the  living-dead. 
It  is  Hallows  Eve.  Ghosts,  witches,  goblins,  all  the  spirits  of 
the  dead,  are  abroad.  Maria  is  among  them:  the  ghost  of  a 
woman,  an  ugly  witch  (traditionally  the  epitome  of  sterile 
and  morbid  femininity)  from  the  realm  of  the  dead. 

The  ring,  the  prayerbook,  and  the  clay  itself  have  a  com- 
mon symbolic  function.  They  form  a  trinity,  and  the  order 
of  their  occurrence  traces  the  line  of  Maria's  evolution.  The 
ring  is  a  symbol  of  the  secular  or  profane  passion  which 
Maria  has  rejected;  the  prayerbook  is  a  symbol  of  a  passionate 
spiritual  marriage  (such  as  the  nun's  union  with  Christ), 
but  Maria  is  incapable  of  fruitful  sacrifice  and  devotion. 
When  she  touches  the  clay  a  double  irony  emerges,  for  the 
clay  is  simultaneously  the  symbol  of  her  hfe  and  her  im- 
minent physical  death.  When  the  prayerbook  is  quickly  sub- 
stituted and  Mrs.  Donnelly  announces  merrily  that  Maria 
will  enter  a  convent,  the  irony  is  not  diluted  but  increased: 
to  enter  the  convent  is  to  continue  her  death  in  life.  So  deep 
is  her  paralysis,  the  twice-repeated  verses  of  the  song  fail  to 
do  their  work,  and  "no  one  tried  to  show  her  her  mistake." 
Maria's  irretrievable  mistake  is  the  rejection  of  passional  life, 
a  rejection  so  habitual  that  it  nullifies  every  revelatory  sugges- 
tion, the  hints  by  the  laundry  women,  the  sarcasm  of  the  shop- 
girl, the  attentions  of  the  tipsy  gentleman  on  the  tram,  the 
clay,  the  song,  and  Joe's  tearful  scrabbling  for  the  corkscrew. 

The  insensibility  of  the  child,  the  adolescent,  and  the  adult 
is  duplicated  in  the  "pubhc  life"  of  the  community.  "Ivy 
Day  in  the  Committee  Room,"  "A  Mother,"  and  "Grace" 
constitute  an  ironic  trilogy  exposing  the  lifelessness  of  poli- 
tics, art,  and  religion.  In  comparison  with  its  companion 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  29 

pieces,  "A  Mother"  has  received  very  httle  critical  attention. 
Yet  the  episode  it  presents  is  a  richly  symbolic  comment  on 
the  fate  of  aesthetic  values  in  Joyce's  Dublin.  The  three 
members  of  the  Eire  Abu  Society  suggest  something  of  the 
spirit  behind  the  concert  series.  Holohan,  the  assistant  secre- 
tary, is  crippled  and  ineffectual.  The  chief  secretary,  Mr. 
Fitzpatrick,  is  "a  little  man  with  a  white,  vacant  face,"  a 
''flat"  accent  and  a  "vacant"  smile.  When  the  first  concert 
fails  Mrs.  Kearney  observes  that  Fitzpatrick  ''seemed  to  bear 
disappointments  hghtly."  Miss  Beirne  has  "an  oldish  face 
which  was  screwed  into  an  expression  of  trustfulness  and 
enthusiasm."  Taken  together,  these  three  spell  out  the  com- 
munity attitudes  toward  the  arts. 

Mrs.  Kearney  takes  upon  herself  the  task  of  infusing  life 
and  efficiency  into  this  listless  group,  and  in  the  attempt  she 
becomes  the  spiritual  "mother"  of  art.  Her  qualifications  are 
implicit  in  the  sketch  of  her  girlhood  and  her  marriage.  As 
a  young  woman  she  was  taught  the  social  graces  in  a  convent. 
Pale  and  unbending,  she  developed  "ivory  manners"  and 
"sat  amid  the  chilly  circle  of  her  accomplishments,  waiting 
for  some  suitor  to  brave  it  and  offer  her  a  brilliant  hfe."  But 
the  rescuer  fails  to  appear.  She  is  forced  to  suppress  her  ro- 
mantic fancies  and  marries  an  older  man  "out  of  spite."  The 
marriage  is  as  passionless  as  the  wooden  souls  of  husband 
and  wife,  but  Mrs.  Kearney  "never  put  her  own  romantic 
ideas  away."  Thus  when  the  Irish  Revival  becomes  popular 
she  sees  in  it  an  opportunity  for  genteel  indulgence  of  her 
suppressed  romanticism.  And  in  this  respect  she  represents 
the  motives  which  in  Joyce's  mind  characterized  the  move- 
ment—the attempt  by  a  staid  and  essentially  paralyzed 
people  to  capitalize  on  the  safely  remote  passions  of  the 
dead. 

The  graceless  mediocrity  of  the  concerts  (which  awaken 
very  httle  response  in  the  city)  is  symbolized  by  Madam 
Glynn,  the  ancient  soprano.  She  is  a  "solitary  woman"  with 
"a  pale  face."  A  "faded  blue  dress  is  stretched  upon  her 


30  BAKER 

meagre  body/'  and  as  she  stands  waiting  her  turn  **The 
shadow  took  her  faded  dress  into  shelter  but  fell  revenge- 
fully into  the  little  cup  behind  her  collar  bone."  The  younger 
ladies  wonder  where  they  dug  her  up.  When  she  sings  Kil- 
larney  ''in  a  bodiless  gasping  voice"  she  appears  to  have  been 
''resurrected  from  an  old  stage-wardrobe." 

As  the  first  concert  "expires"  Mrs.  Kearney  senses  the  ulti- 
mate collapse  of  the  series  and  takes  steps  to  protect  the 
eight  guinea  contract  which  her  daughter  Kathleen  holds  for 
her  work  as  accompanist.  The  last  scene,  in  which  Mrs. 
Kearney  demands  payment,  involves  multiple  irony.  Like  her 
fellow  citizens,  she  allows  her  instinctive  material  values  to 
supersede  the  repressed  romantic  and  aesthetic  impulses,  thus 
indicating  the  shallowness  of  these  motives.  Thwarted  in  her 
bid  for  a  safe,  vicarious  fulfillment,  she  bursts  into  an  angry 
passion  over  a  small  sum  of  money,  and  resuming  her  role 
as  natural  mother,  leads  the  willess  doll,  Kathleen,  from  the 
hall.  The  committee,  in  its  refusal  to  pay,  evidences  the 
same  meanness  of  spirit.  Mr.  O'Madden  Burke,  representa- 
tive of  the  public  press,  offers  a  concluding  remark  which 
sums  up  (like  a  post-mortem)  the  prevailing  opinion:  "You 
did  the  proper  thing,  Holohan." 

"The  Dead"  was  apparently  written  last,  but  it  was  cer- 
tainly not  "appended"  to  the  volume  merely  for  the  purpose 
of  toning  down  the  biting  judgments  of  the  earher  pieces. 
Its  great  quality  lies  in  the  nearly  perfect  manipulation  of 
the  basic  metaphor  and  technique  which  function  through- 
out the  volume.  It  is  the  culmination  of  a  sustained  and 
unified  effort.  With  "The  Dead"  Joyce's  skill  comes  to  ma- 
turity, and  we  have  a  fully  realized  prose  drama  that  equals 
or  excels  the  art  of  his  master.  This  is  not  to  say  that  all  of 
the  other  stories  are  inferior,  but  the  characters  who  inhabit 
them  constitute  a  limitation  which  inhibits  the  complete 
realization  of  possibilities  latent  in  Joyce's  subject.  Since  the 
characters  do  not  achieve  a  significant  degree  of  self-aware- 
ness, the  epiphany  cannot  be  fully  articulated.  And  in  keeping 


Ibsen,  Joyce,  and  the  Living-Dead  31 

with  the  restraint  of  ''dramatic"  presentation,  it  must  be 
rendered  by  the  arrangement  of  ironies  inherent  in  the  various 
situations.  These  facts  account  for  the  obscurity  and  ambi- 
guity in  some  of  the  stories.  The  effects  are  often  over-subtle, 
the  suggestions  too  frail  to  bear  a  maximum  of  implication. 
Thus  most  of  the  characters  are  pathetic  but  not  tragic  crea- 
tures. The  young  boy  of  the  first  three  sketches  merely  intuits 
the  nature  of  his  environment;  the  adolescents  of  the  next 
four  either  capitulate  at  the  moment  of  crisis  or  remain  un- 
conscious of  their  peril;  among  the  adults  only  Mr.  Duffy 
and  Gabriel  Conroy  drink  a  full  measure  of  bitters;  and  all 
the  participants  in  community  affairs  (from  the  priests  and 
politicians  down  to  the  artistes)  are  hopelessly  impervious. 
'*A  Painful  Case"  and  "The  Dead"  are  notable  exceptions 
because  the  two  intelligences  which  dominate  them  make  it 
possible  for  Joyce  to  arrive  at  a  dignified  and  explicit  articu- 
lation of  the  tragic  dimension  implicit  in  his  design.  For  the 
same  reason  they  contain  the  most  obvious  applications  of 
the  Ibsen  theme  and  technique.  ''A  Painful  Case,"  however, 
is  inferior  to  the  final  story.  Though  Mr.  Duffy  comes  to 
realize  his  blindness  and  his  guilt,  his  epiphany  does  not 
carry  him  beyond  the  borders  of  his  own  life;  it  leaves  him 
an  "outcast,"  living  utterly  alone,  cut  off  even  from  the 
communion  of  suffering.  The  superior  range  and  develop- 
ment of  "The  Dead"  is  possible  because  Gabriel  Conroy  has 
the  intelhgence  and  the  imaginative  vision  to  extend  the 
implications  of  his  own  epiphany  and  so  perceive  the  universal 
tragedy  involving  "all  the  living  and  the  dead."  His  provin- 
cial ego  dissolves,  and  in  the  twilight  of  that  demise  he  sees 
that  the  indifferent  snow  descends  over  the  entire  cosmos  of 
souls.  In  Gabriel's  evolution  one  can  measure  the  widening 
arc  of  Joyce's  own  perspective,  the  fruit  of  his  studied  ap- 
prenticeship to  Ibsen. 


32  BAKER 


NOTES 

1.  Richard  Ellmann,  James  Joyce  (New  York,  1959),  pp.  701, 
707,  709-10. 

2.  James  T.  Farrell,  **Exiles  and  Ibsen,"  in  James  Joyce:  Two 
Decades  of  Criticism,  ed.  Seon  Givens  (New  York,  1948),  pp. 
95-131;  Francis  Fergusson,  "A  Reading  of  Exiles''  (Preface), 
Exiles  (Norfolk,  Connecticut,  1945),  PP-  v-xviii. 

3.  The  passages  from  the  play  are  cited  by  Joyce  in  "Ibsen's 
New  Drama,"  The  Critical  Writings,  eds.  Ellsworth  Mason  and 
Richard  Ellmann  (New  York,  1959),  pp.  59,  61. 

4.  Ibid.,  pp.  65-66. 

5.  "Drama  and  Life,"  The  Critical  Writings,  p.  45. 

6.  Brewster  Ghiselin,  'The  Unity  of  Joyce's  Dubliners/'  Ac- 
cent, XVI  (Spring  1956),  75-88,  and  (Summer  1956),  196-213. 

7.  Richard  Levin  and  Charles  Shattuck,  "First  Flight  to 
Ithaca,"  in  James  Joyce:  Two  Decades  of  Criticism,  pp.  47-94. 

8.  See  Epiphanies,  edited  with  an  introduction  and  notes  by 
O.  A.  Silverman  (Buffalo,  New  York,  1956). 

9.  A  selected  checklist  of  criticism  of  the  individual  stories, 
compiled  by  Maurice  Beebe  and  Walton  Litz,  appears  in  Mod- 
ern Fiction  Studies,  iv  (Spring  1958),  83-85. 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell:  Its  Source  and 
Its  Backgrounds 


JAMES     R.     THRANE 


STEPHEN' S  effort,  in  Joyce's  A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 
as  a  Young  Mczn/  to  impose  a  romantic  order  upon  the 
adolescent  tumult  within  him  and  the  Dublin  commonplace- 
ness  without  is  soon  exhausted,  like  his  pot  of  pink  paint. 
The  phantom  of  Dumas's  Mercedes  is  made  flesh  in  Night- 
town,  and  soon,  deep  in  mortal  sin,  Stephen  sits  in  the  chapel 
of  Belvedere  College  on  a  gloomy  December  day  while  the 
retreat  master  remorselessly  expounds  the  spectacles  and  tor- 
ments of  hell.  Overwhelmed  by  fear  and  remorse,  Stephen 
confesses  his  sins  and  once  more  sets  about  ordering  his  life 
—  no  longer  by  outworn  configurations  of  romance  but  by 
the  admonitory  consciousness  of  death,  judgment,  hell,  and 
heaven.  However,  when  he  is  urged  to  ask  himself  whether 
he  has  a  vocation,  his  long-standing  dissatisfactions  with  a 
church  that  has  too  much  of  the  Dublin  earth  about  it  as- 
sume definite  form,  and  he  concludes  that  his  freedom  must 
remain  inviolate,  that  "self-doomed,  unafraid,"  he  must  learn 
wisdom  "apart  from  others  .  .  .  wandering  among  the  snares 
of  the  world." 

The  reactions  of  most  readers  to  Father  Arnall's  depiction 
of  eternal  tortures  have  been  less  extreme  than  Stephen's. 

JAMES  R.  THRANE  HOW  teacHcs  at  The  University  of  Wisconsin- 
Milwaukee. 

33 


34  THRANE 

Farrell  calls  it  "one  of  the  most  magnificently  written  pas- 
sages in  all  of  Joyce's  work/'  comparable  with  Dante,  and  all 
have  granted  its  dramatic  effectiveness.  But  few  readers  can 
judge  the  sermon  and  the  phase  of  development  that  it  opens 
apart  from  their  own  assumptions  and  commitments:  Father 
Arnall's  words  produce  something  like  awe,  amusement,  or 
scorn  (and  little  more)  in  Magalaner,  Tindall,  and  Kenner. 
Catholic  writers,  with  no  hostile  bias,  nevertheless  have  ob- 
jected to  the  sermon,  one  critic.  Father  Noon,  holding  that 
it  is  not  a  ''comprehensive  or  characteristic  Catholic  ac- 
count." 2  Kevin  Sullivan's  recent  study  of  Joyce  among  the 
Jesuits  contains  a  somewhat  more  thorough  study  than  these 
of  the  sermon  as  well  as  of  Stephen's  short-lived  effort  to  live 
remembering  the  four  last  things  only.  Pointing  out  the 
retreat's  relationship  to  St.  Ignatius'  Spiritual  Exercises,  Sul- 
livan also  examines  Stephen's  new  rule  of  life  in  relation  to 
the  manual  of  the  Belvedere  College  sodality  of  which  Joyce 
was  prefect  for  two  years.  He  concludes  that  this  manual, 
compiled  by  Father  James  A.  Cullen,  S.J.,  was  "the  primary, 
if  not  the  exclusive,  source"  of  the  plan  by  which  Stephen 
lays  out  his  life  in  devotional  areas.^  This  is  possible,  al- 
though, as  Sullivan  says,  many  books  of  devotion  treat  such 
topics  similarly.  However,  he  goes  on  to  suggest,  on  the  basis 
of  eight  passages  containing  more  or  less  similar  phrases,  that 
the  manual  was  also  the  source  of  the  sermon  on  hell.  Here, 
I  believe,  he  is  mistaken.  The  primary  —  probably  the  sole 
—  printed  source  of  this  sermon  was,  as  I  will  show,  the 
English  version  of  an  Italian  tract  called  in  translation  Hell 
Opened  to  ChristianSy  To  Caution  Them  from  Entering 
into  It,  written  by  Giovanni  Fietro  Pinamonti,  a  seventeenth- 
century  Jesuit.  This  title  is  not  entirely  new  to  Joyce  stu- 
dents: J.  F.  Byrne  recalls  that  "Hell  Open  [sic]  to  Christians'' 
was  displayed  (not  inappropriately)  with  the  Deadwood 
Dicks  in  Josh  Strong's  bookshop  at  26,  Wellington  Quay, 
where  Mr.  Bloom  hopefully  selects  Molly's  reading;  and 
there  is  also  assistant  town  clerk  Henry's  peevish  complaint 


Joyce* s  Sermon  on  Hell  35 

(*'Hell  open  to  christians  they  were  having  .  .  .  about  their 
damned  Irish  language")  in  the  Wandering  Rocks  section 
of  Ulysses  (p.  243),  which  may  indicate  that  the  title  had 
a  sort  of  proverbial  status  in  the  gray  inferno  of  Joyce's 
Dublin.  At  least,  so  Byrne  uses  it,  fifty  years  later.* 

Father  Pinamonti  (1632-1703),  born  in  Pistoia  of  a  noble 
family,  entered  the  Society  of  Jesus  in  1647.  Illness  forcing 
him  to  lay  aside  his  studies,  he  gave  up  a  teaching  career  in 
favor  of  rural  mission  work,  in  which  for  twenty-six  years 
he  was  the  companion  of  the  famed  preacher  Paolo  Segneri. 
His  own  preaching  brought  Pinamonti  the  friendship  of 
Cosimo  III,  grand  duke  of  Tuscany,  and  other  notables,  and 
such  works  as  La  Religiosa  in  solitudine  (1695)  and  II  Diret- 
tore  (posth.  1705)  carried  his  fame  beyond  Italy.  Ulnferno 
aperto  al  cristiano  perche  non  ventri:  Considerazioni  delle 
pene  infernali  proposte  a  meditarsi  per  eyitarle^  first  pub- 
lished anonymously  at  Bologna  in  1688,  went  through  many 
editions  and  was  translated  into  Latin,  French,  German, 
Spanish,  and  Portuguese.  It  first  appeared  in  English,  anony- 
mously translated,  at  London  (?)  in  1715,  and  passed  through 
at  least  six  more  editions  in  the  next  hundred-odd  years.  The 
two  editions  of  Victorian  times  that  concern  us  appeared  at 
Derby  in  1844,  probably  as  one  of  the  Derby  Catholic  Book 
Society's  numerous  pubhcations,  and  at  Dubhn  in  1868,  from 
the  well-known  firm  of  James  Duffy,  Wellington  Quay.  The 
text  of  the  latter  edition,  which  I  have  used  and  which 
corresponds  so  closely  with  the  Portrait  sermon,  is  probably 
the  one  used  in  all  earlier  printings;  the  extracts  given  by 
Dearmer^  from  the  1753  edition  (Dubhn)  differ  only  in 
punctuation  and  spelling.  At  any  rate,  aside  from  a  few 
omitted  phrases  and  errors  in  biblical  references,  the  trans- 
lation is  accurate  and  fairly  literal,  although  not  enough  so 
as  to  make  it  at  all  probable  that  Joyce  ever  saw  the  Italian 
original.^  Like  the  others,  this  1868  edition,  a  badly  printed 
forty-eight-page  pamphlet,  is  illustrated  with  seven  grotesque 
woodcuts  showing  fettered  sinners  tormented  by  the  ever- 


36  THRANE 

lasting  fire  of  Matthew,  chapter  25,  and  the  undying  worm 
of  Mark,  chapter  9.  These  pictures  have  had  much  to  do 
with  the  notoriety  accorded  the  tract  since  the  late  nine- 
teenth century;  in  one  influential  Victorian  commentator 
they  evoked  a  guilt  "which  called  for  the  performance  of  a 
lustration." '' 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians,  following  a  traditional  pattern 
in  devotional  literature,  consists  of  seven  daily  ''Considera- 
tions" or  meditations,  each  analyzed,  somewhat  arbitrarily, 
under  three  points  and  concluding  with  a  short  prayer  to  a 
different  sacred  personage.  (Joyce  has  not  used  the  prayers 
or  the  sermon  *'On  the  Joys  of  Heaven"  —  evidently  not  by 
Pinamonti  —  that  concludes  the  1868  version.)  The  con- 
siderations themselves  analyze  the  twofold  punishment^  of 
mortal  sin,  the  first  three  examining  the  poena  sensus  or 
pain  of  sense:  (1)  The  Prison  of  Hell  (its  straitness,  dark- 
ness, and  stench);  (2)  The  Fire  (its  quahty,  quantity,  and 
intenseness ) ;  and  (3)  The  Company  of  the  Damned  (the 
damned  themselves,  the  devils,  and  the  accomplices  in  sin). 
Father  ArnalFs  Friday-morning  sermon  comprises  these  points 
in  this  order,  save  that  it  treats  as  one  topic  the  lost  souls  and 
the  accomplices  of  the  third  consideration.  His  afternoon 
sermon  is  based,  nearly  as  closely,  on  Pinamonti's  remaining 
four  considerations,  which  set  forth  the  poena  damni  or 
pains  consequent  on  the  eternal  loss  of  the  beatific  vision: 
(4)  The  Pain  of  Loss  (it  is  infinite,  most  painful,  and  retrib- 
utive); (5)  The  Sting  of  Conscience  (memory  of  past 
pleasures,  fruitless  remorse,  and  good  occasions  neglected); 
(6)  The  Pain  of  Extension  (despair  from  the  infiniteness  and 
intensity  of  spiritual  pangs  and  from  the  damned  souls'  com- 
parison of  their  lot  with  that  of  the  saints);  and  (7)  Eternity 
(pain  is  endless,  unchangeable,  and  just).^ 

Or,  in  Maurice  Daedalus'  laconic  precis,  "Stink  in  the 
morning  and  pain  of  loss  in  the  evening"   {Stephen  Hero, 

P-57)- 
Resemblance,  of  course,  does  not  necessarily  mean  indebt- 


Joyce*s  Sermon  on  Hell  37 

edness.  This  plan  of  organization  is  common  in  a  tradition  of 
devotional  literature  that  has  long  flourished,  especially  dur- 
ing the  seventeenth  century.  The  sermon  has,  in  fact,  so 
many  affinities  with  this  tradition  that  they  need  separate 
consideration.  This  —  along  with  the  scarceness  of  Pina- 
monti's  tract  — is  why  I  have  printed  below  most  of  the 
sermon's  passages  together  with  their  equivalents  in  Hell 
Opened  to  Christians  (1868  ed.).  The  obvious  correspond- 
ences not  merely  in  image,  example,  and  organization  but 
even  in  sequence  and  phrasing  should  leave  httle  doubt  con- 
cerning Joyce's  extensive  use  of  the  Italian's  work;  and,  as 
I  will  show,  only  a  work  that  corresponds  to  Joyce's  as  closely 
as  Pinamonti's  does  merits  consideration  as  its  source  at  all. 


Hell  Opened  to  Christians  A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

[Isa.  5:14  (Hell  hath  enlarged  .  .  ."),  Father  Arnall's  text 
for  the  morning  sermon  (Portrait,  p.  ^yo)  appears  in  Hell 
Opened  (twice,  on  pp.  4  and  12),  as  do  all  other  texts  he 
quotes.] 


[First  Consideration:  The 
Straitness  of  the  Prison  of 
Hell.]  Consider,  that  the  first 
injustice  a  soul  offers  to  God, 
is  the  .  .  .  breaking  [of]  his 
commandments,  and  declaring 
not  to  be  willing  to  serve  him: 
**Thou  saidst,  I  will  not  serve." 
—  Jer.  ii.  To  punish,  therefore, 
so  great  a  boldness,  God  has 
framed  a  prison  in  the  lowest 
part  of  the  universe.  .  .  . 
Here  though  the  place  itself 
be  wide  enough,  the  damned 
will  not  even  have  that  relief, 
which  ...  a  poor  prisoner  has 
in  walking  between  four  walls 
.  .  .  because  they  shall  be 
bound  up  like  a  faggot,  and 
heaped  upon  one  another  .  .  . 
and  this  by  reason  of  the  great 
number    of    the    damned,    to 


Lucifer,  we  are  told,  was  .  .  . 
a  radiant  and  mighty  angel; 
yet  he  fell.  .  .  .  What  his  sin 
was  we  cannot  say.  Theologians 
consider  that  it  was  .  .  .  the 
sinful  thought  conceived  in  an 
instant:  non  serviam:  I  will  not 
serve.  .  .  .     (370-71) 


The  straitness  of  this  prison 
house  is  expressly  designed  by 
God  to  punish  those  who  re- 
fused to  be  bound  by  His  laws. 
In  earthly  prisons  the  poor 
captive  has  at  least  some  liberty 
of  movement,  were  it  only 
within  the  four  walls  of  his 
cell.  .  .  .  Not  so  in  hell. 
There,  by  reason  of  the  great 


38 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

whom  this  great  pit  will  be- 
come narrow  and  strait. 
.  .  .  {y-8)  Those  miserable 
wretches  will  not  only  be 
straitened,  but  also  be  im- 
moveable; and,  therefore,  if  a 
blessed  saint,  as  St.  Anselm 
says,  in  his  book  of  Similitudes, 
will  be  strong  enough  ...  to 
move  the  whole  earth:  a 
damned  soul  will  be  so  weak, 
as  not  to  be  able  even  to  re- 
move from  the  eye  a  worm  that 
is  gnawing  it.  The  walls  of  this 
prison  are  more  than  four  thou- 
sand miles  thick.  ...   (8) 

Consider,  that  this  prison 
will  not  only  be  extremely 
strait,  but  also  extremely  dark. 
It  is  true,  there  will  be  a  fire, 
but  without  light.  .  .  .  That 
will  be  true  ...  by  a  con- 
trary miracle  to  what  was 
wrought  in  the  Babylonian 
furnace,  for  there,  by  the  com- 
mand of  God,  the  heat  was 
taken  from  the  fire,  but  not 
the  light  of  brightness:  but  in 
hell,  the  fire  will  lose  its  light, 
but  not  its  heat.  Moreover, 
this  same  fire,  burning  with 
brimstone,  will  have  a  search- 
ing flame,  which  being  mingled 
with  the  rolling  smoke  of  that 
infernal  cave,  will  .  .  .  raise  a 
storm  of  darkness,  according 
to  what  is  written  .  .  .  [in] 
Jude  xiii.  .  .  .  (8-9)  Finally, 
the  same  mass  of  bodies  heaped 
one  upon  another  will  .  .  . 
make  up  a  part  of  that  dreadful 
night;  not  a  glimpse  of  trans- 
parent air  being  left  to  the  eye 
of  the  damned.  ...  (9)  If 
amongst    all    the    plagues    of 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

number  of  the  damned,  the 
prisoners  are  heaped  together 
in  their  awful  prison,  the  walls 
of  which  are  said  to  be  four 
thousand  miles  thick:  and  the 
damned  are  so  utterly  bound 
and  helpless  that,  as  a  blessed 
saint.  Saint  Anselm,  writes  in 
his  book  on  similitudes,  they 
are  not  even  able  to  remove 
from  the  eye  a  worm  that 
gnaws  it  (373).  [Note  that  it 
is  Pinamonti,  not  Anselm,  who 
speaks  of  a  worm  gnawing  the 
eye.] 

—  They  lie  in  exterior  dark- 
ness. For,  remember,  the  fire 
of  hell  gives  forth  no  light.  As, 
at  the  command  of  God,  the 
fire  of  the  Babylonian  furnace 
lost  its  heat  but  not  its  light 
so,  at  the  command  of  God, 
the  fire  of  hell,  while  retaining 
the  intensity  of  its  heat,  burns 
eternally  in  darkness.  It  is  a 
neverending  storm  of  darkness, 
dark  flames  and  dark  smoke  of 
burning  brimstone, 


amid  which  the  bodies  are 
heaped  one  upon  another  with- 
out even  a  glimpse  of  air. 


Of  all  the  plagues  with  which 


Joyce*s  Sermon  on  Hell 
Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

Egypt,  darkness  alone  was 
called  horrible;  what  name 
shall  we  give  to  that  darkness, 
which  is  not  to  last  for  three 
days  only,  but  for  all  eterni- 

ty  [?]  (9) 

Consider,  how  much  the 
horror  of  this  prison,  so  strait 
and  obscure,  must  be  height- 
ened, by  the  addition  of  the 
greatest  stench.  First,  thither, 
as  to  a  common  sewer,  all  the 
filth  of  the  earth  shall  run 
after  the  fire  of  the  last  day 
has  purged  the  world.  Sec- 
ondly, the  brimstone  itself  con- 
tinually burning  in  such  a  pro- 
digious quantity,  will  cause  a 
stench  not  to  be  borne. 
Thirdly,  the  very  bodies  of  the 
damned  will  exhale  so  pesti- 
lential a  stench,  that  if  any 
one  of  them  were  to  be  placed 
here  on  earth,  it  would  be 
enough,  as  St.  Bonaventure  ob- 
serves, to  cause  a  general  in- 
fection (9).  .  .  .  Air,  itself, 
being  for  a  time  closely  shut 
up,  becomes  insupportable;  — 
judge,  then,  what  those  un- 
happy prisoners  must  suffer 
from  the  collected  sink  [sic] 
of  this  eternally  loathsome 
abyss  (9). 

[Second  Consideration:  The 
Quality  of  the  Fire.]  .  .  . 
Even  among  men  there  never 
was  found  a  greater  torment 
[than  fire].  {11)  .  .  .  If  .  .  . 
we  cannot  bear  ever  so  little 
awhile  [sic]  the  flame  of  a 
candle,  how  shall  we  for  ever 
be  buried  in  flames  .  .  .  ? 
{12)    Nevertheless,   you   must 


39 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

the  land  of  the  Pharaohs  was 
smitten  one  plague  alone,  that 
of  darkness,  was  called  horri- 
ble. What  name,  then,  shall 
we  give  to  the  darkness  of  hell 
which  is  to  last  not  for  three 
days  alone  but  for  all  eternity? 


—  The  horror  of  this  strait 
and  dark  prison  is  (373)  in- 
creased by  its  awful  stench. 
All  the  filth  of  the  world,  all 
the  offal  and  scum  of  the 
world,  we  are  told,  shall  run 
there  as  to  a  vast  reeking  sewer 
when  the  terrible  conflagration 
of  the  last  day  has  purged  the 
world.  The  brimstone,  too, 
which  burns  there  in  such 
prodigious  quantity  fills  all  hell 
with  its  intolerable  stench;  and 
the  bodies  of  the  damned 
themselves  exhale  such  a  pesti- 
lential odour  that  as  Saint 
Bonaventure  says,  one  of  them 
alone  would  suffice  to  infect 
the  whole  world.  The  very  air 
of  this  world,  that  pure  ele- 
ment, becomes  foul  and  un- 
breathable  when  it  has  been 
long  enclosed.  Consider  then 
what  must  be  the  foulness  of 
the  air  of  hell.  .  .  .   (374) 


.  .  .  The  torment  of  fire  is  the 
greatest  torment  to  which  the 
tyrant  has  ever  subjected  his 
fellowcreatures.  Place  your  fin- 
ger for  a  moment  in  the  flame 
of  a  candle  and  you  will  feel 
the  pain  of  fire. 


40 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

not  think  the  fire  of  hell  is  like 
ours.  .  .  .  Our  fire  is  created 
for  the  benefit  of  man,  to  serve 
him  as  a  help  in  most  arts,  and 
for  the  maintaining  of  life;  but 
the  fire  of  hell  was  only  created 
for  God  to  revenge  himself  of 
the  wicked.  .  .  .  Our  fire  is 
often  applied  to  subjects  not 
at  all  proportioned  to  its  ac- 
tivity; but  the  fire  of  hell  is 
kindled  by  a  sulphureous  and 
bituminous  matter,  which  will 
always  burn  with  unspeakable 
fury.  .  .  .  (ii)  Finally,  our 
fire  destroys  what  is  burns, 
therefore,  the  more  intense  it 
is,  the  shorter  is  it[s]  dura- 
tion; but  the  fire  in  which  the 
damned  shall  for  ever  be  tor- 
mented, shall  burn  without 
ever  consuming.  .  .  .  (12) 


Consider  what  strength  this 
devouring  fire  will  have,  on 
account  of  the  great  quantity 
thereof.  ...  (12)  [A]  sea  of 
fire,  which  has  neither  shore 
nor  bottom.  .  .  .  {18)  Who 
is  there  that  can  doubt,  that  if 
a  whole  mountain  were  thrown 
into  this  great  furnace,  but 
that  it  would  melt  as  soon  as 
a  piece  of  wax?  This  the  devil 
was  forced  to  own,  being  asked 
by  a  soldier.  .  .  .  (12)  .  .  . 
that  flame,  so  fierce  and  so 
great,  will  not  only  afflict  us 
without,  as  it  happens  with  the 
fires   of   this   world;   but   will 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

But  our  earthly  fire  was  created 
by  God  for  the  benefit  of  man, 
to  maintain  in  him  the  spark 
of  life  and  to  help  him  in  the 
useful  arts  whereas  the  fire  of 
hell  is  of  another  quality  and 
was  created  by  God  to  torture 
and  punish  the  unrepentant 
sinner.  Our  earthly  fire  also 
consumes  more  or  less  rapidly 
according  as  the  object  which 
it  attacks  is  more  (374)  or 
less  combustible.  .  .  .  But  the 
sulphurous  brimstone  which 
burns  in  hell  is  a  substance 
which  is  specially  designed  to 
burn  for  ever  and  for  ever  with 
unspeakable  fury.  Moreover 
our  earthly  fire  destroys  at  the 
same  time  as  it  burns  so  that 
the  more  intense  it  is  the 
shorter  is  its  duration:  but  the 
fire  of  hell  has  this  property 
that  it  preserves  that  which  it 
burns  and  though  it  rages  with 
incredible  intensity  it  rages  for 
ever. 

—  Our  earthly  fire  again 
...  is  always  of  a  limited  ex- 
tent: but  the  lake  of  fire  in 
hell  is  boundless,  shoreless  and 
bottomless.  It  is  on  record  that 
the  devil  himself,  when  asked 
the  question  by  a  certain  sol- 
dier, was  obliged  to  confess 
that  if  a  whole  mountain  were 
thrown  into  the  burning  ocean 
of  hell  it  would  be  burned  up 
in  an  instant  like  a  piece  of 
wax.  And  this  terrible  fire  will 
not  afflict  the  bodies  of  the 
damned    only    from    without 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

penetrate  our  very  bones,  our 
marrow,  and  even  the  very 
principle  of  our  life  and  being. 
.  .  .  Every  one  that  is  damned 
will  be  like  a  lighted  furnace, 
which  has  its  own  flames  in 
itself;  all  that  filthy  blood  will 
boil  in  the  veins,  the  brains  in 
the  skull,  the  heart  in  the 
breast,  the  bowels  within  that 
unfortunate  body,  surrounded 
with  an  abyss  of  fire.  .  .  .  (13) 

Consider,  that  whatever  has 
been  said  either  as  to  the 
strength,  the  quality,  or  the 
quantity  of  this  infernal  fire, 
it  is  nothing  in  comparison  to 
the  intenseness  it  will  have  as 
being  the  instrument  of  the 
Divine  Justice.  .  .  .  [I]t  will 
have  its  rise  from  the  foot  of 
the  throne  of  God,  that  is  to 
say,  it  will  receive  an  incredi- 
ble vigour  from  the  omnipo- 
tency  of  God;  working,  not 
with  its  own  activity,  but,  as 
an  instrument,  with  the  ac- 
tivity of  its  agent.  .  .  .  (13) 
...  as  God  makes  use  of  ma- 
terial water  in  baptism,  not 
only  to  wash  the  body,  but  to 
cleanse  and  sanctify  the  soul, 
so  in  hell  he  makes  use  of  fire, 
though  material,  to  punish  her 
when  sinful  and  unclean.  The 
infernal  fire  then  is  an  effect 
of  the  omnipotency  of  God 
injured  by  sinners;  it  is  a  visi- 
ble sign  of  that  infinite  hatred 
which  the  divine  goodness 
bears  to  sin,  as  also  an  inven- 
tion of  his  wisdom  to  recover 
the  honour  taken  from  him  by 
the  wicked.  .  .  .  (1^) 


41 


A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 


but  each  lost  soul  will  be  a  hell 
unto  itself,  the  boundless  fire 
raging  in  its  very  vitals.  .  .  . 
The  blood  seethes  and  boils  in 
the  veins,  the  brains  are  boil- 
ing in  the  skull,  the  heart  in 
the  breast  glowing  and  burst- 
ing, the  bowels  a  redhot  mass 
of  burning  pulp,  the  tender 
eyes  flaming  like  molten  balls. 
—  And  yet  what  I  have  said 
as  to  the  strength  and  quality 
and  boundlessness  of  this  fire 
is  as  nothing  when  compared 
to  its  intensity,  an  intensity 
which  it  has  as  being  the  in- 
strument chosen  by  divine  de- 
sign for  the  punishment  of 
soul  and  body  alike.  It  is  a  fire 
which  proceeds  directly  from 
the  ire  of  God,  working  not  of 
its  own  activity  but  as  an  in- 
strument of  divine  vengeance. 


As  the  waters  of  baptism 
cleanse  the  soul  with  the  body 
so  do  the  fires  of  punishment 
torture  the  spirit  with  the 
flesh.  (37^-7^)  '  •  '  arid  .  .  . 
the  immortal  soul  is  tortured 
eternally  .  .  .  amid  the  .  .  . 
glowing  fires  kindled  in  the 
abyss  by  the  offended  majesty 
of  the  Omnipotent  God  and 
fanned  into  everlasting  and 
ever  increasing  fury  by  the 
breath  of  the  anger  of  the  God- 
head. 


42 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

[Third  Consideration:  The 
Company  of  the  Damned.] 
Consider,  what  great  torment 
will  be  added  to  the  infernal 
habitation  by  the  inhabitants 
themselves.  The  being  in  ill 
company  is  so  great  a  pain, 
that  one  would  think  the  very 
plants  on  earth  are  sensible  of 
it,  whilst  they  withdraw  them- 
selves, and  fly  from  those  that 
are  noxious  or  hurtful  to  them. 
(i^)  .  .  .  all  laws  being  over- 
turned [in  hell],  and  all  reason 
banished,  there  will  be  no  re- 
gard to  consanguinity,  parent- 
age, country,  or  to  any  tie  or 
motive  which  might  mitigate 
their  desperate  rage  against 
each  other.  .  .  .  their  very 
bowlings  and  groans  will  make 
them  intolerable.  (16) 

Consider,  that  the  company 
of  the  accomplices  in  sin  will 
be  painful  above  all  imagina- 
tion. .  .  .  (17)  Who  can  con- 
ceive the  curses,  blasphemies 
and  execrations  they  will  spit 
out  .  .  .  ?  {18)  The  punish- 
ment assigned  for  parricides 
was  to  be  shut  up  in  a  sack 
with  a  cock,  a  serpent,  and  a 
monkey,  and  so  to  be  thrown 
into  the  sea:  but  how  little  do 
the  lawgivers  among  men  un- 
derstand what  pain  is!  The 
divine  justice  has  found  out 
other  sort  of  company  where- 
with to  punish  criminals;  a 
place  full  of  executioners  and 
condemned  persons  ...  in 
the  middle  of  a  sea  of  fire. 
.  .  .  (18)  .  .  .  those  friends 
for  whose  sake  you  turned  your 
backs    on    God,    will   be    the 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 


—  Consider  finally  that  the 
torment  of  this  infernal  prison 
is  increased  by  the  company 
of  the  damned  themselves. 
Evil  company  on  earth  is  so 
noxious  that  the  plants,  as  if 
by  instinct, 

withdraw  from  the  company  of 
whatsoever  is  deadly  or  hurtful 
to  them.  In  hell  all  laws  are 
overturned  — 

there  is  no  thought  of  family 
or  country,  of  ties,  of  relation- 
ships. ...  All  sense  of  hu- 
manity is  forgotten. 
The  yells  of  the  suffering  sin- 
ners fill  the  remotest  corners 
of  the  vast  abyss.  The  mouths 
of  the  damned  are  full  of 
blasphemies  against  God  and 
of  hatred  for  their  fellow  suf- 
ferers and  of  curses  against 
those  souls  which  were  their 
accomplices  in  sin.  In  olden 
times  it  was  the  custom  to  pun- 
ish the  parricide  ...  by  cast- 
ing him  into  the  depths  of  the 
sea  in  a  sack  in  which  were 
placed  a  cock,  a  monkey  and 
a  serpent.  .  .  .  The  intention 
of  those  lawgivers  .  .  .  was  to 
punish  the  criminal.  .  .  .  But 
what  is  the  (376)  fury  of  those 
dumb  beasts  compared  with 
the  fury  of  execration  which 
bursts  from  the  parched  lips 
.  .  .  of  the  damned  in  hell 
when  they  behold  .  .  .  those 
who  aided  and  abetted  them 
in  sin  .  .  .  those  whose  im- 
modest suggestions  led  them 
on  to  sin, 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

crudest  furies  ...  no  devil 
will  torment  you  so  much  as 
the  person  you  disordinately 
loved.  .  .  .  Those  eyes  which 
are  now  your  stars,  shall  then 
send  forth  darts  more  piercing 
than  the  very  lightning.   (17- 

18) 

Consider,  the  company  of 
the  devils  will  prove  far  more 
tormenting  than  would  be  that 
of  our  greatest  enemies.  .  .  . 
They  will  afflict  the  damned 
two  different  ways,  by  their 
sight  and  by  reproaches.  {16) 
...  St.  Catherine  of  Sienna, 
speaking  to  our  Saviour,  said 
much  more:  'That  rather  than 
behold  again  such  a  frightful 
infernal  form,  she  would 
choose  [to?]  walk  in  a  road  all 
of  fire  to  the  day  of  judgment." 
According  {16)  to  this,  one  of 
those  monsters  alone  would  be 
enough  to  make  a  hell  of  the 
place  he  is  in.  .  .  .  But  what 
will  it  be  when  reproaches  and 
scorn  are  added  to  the  sight 
of  them?  .  .  .  Fool  .  .  .  who 
couldst  so  easily  have  saved 
thyself  by  restoring  those  ill- 
gotten  goods,  by  breaking  off 
that  lewd  practice,  by  one 
hearty  sorrow,  and  thou 
wouldst  not  do  it[:]  why  dost 
thou  now  complain?  Thou 
wert  thyself  the  occasion  of 
thy  misfortune,  (ij) 


[Fourth  Consideration:  The 
Pain  of  Loss.]  "I  am  cast  away 
from  the  sight  of  thine  eyes." 
Psalm  XXX.  22  [sic].  .  .  .^^ 


43 


A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 


those  whose  eyes  tempted  and 
allured  them  from  the  path  of 
virtue.  .  .  . 

—  Last  of  all  consider  the 
frightful  torment  to  those 
damned  souls,  tempters  and 
tempted  alike,  of  the  company 
of  the  devils.  These  devils  will 
afflict  the  damned  in  two  ways, 
by  their  presence  and  by  their 
reproaches.  .  .  .  Saint  Cath- 
erine of  Siena  once  saw  a  devil 
and  she  has  written  that,  rath- 
er than  look  again  for  one 
single  instant  on  such  a  fright- 
ful monster,  she  would  prefer 
to  walk  until  the  end  of  her 
life  along  a  track  of  red  coals. 
These  devils  .  .  .  have  become 
as  hideous  and  ugly  as  they 
once  were  beautiful.  They 
mock  and  jeer  at  the  lost  souls 
whom  they  dragged  down  to 
ruin.  .  .  .  Why  did  you  sin? 
.  .  .  Why  did  you  not  give  up 
that  lewd  habit,  that  impure 
habit?  (377)  You  would  not 
.  .  .  restore  those  illgotten 
goods.  .  .  .  (378)  Why  did 
you  not  .  .  .  repent  of  your 
evil  ways  and  turn  to  God  who 
only  waited  for  your  repent- 
ance to  absolve  you  of  your 
sins?  (377)  [Note.  —  Matt. 
25:41  (^'Depart  from  me,  ye 
cursed  .  .  ."),  with  which  Fa- 
ther Arnall  concludes  his  Fri- 
day-morning sermon,  is  quoted 
by  Pinamonti  on  p.  22.] 

—  I  am  cast  away  from  the 
sight  of  Thine  eyes:  words 
taken,  my  dear  little  brothers 


44 


Hell  Opened  to  Christians 


For  in  sin  there  is  a  double 
malice:  the  first  is  the  turning 
one's  back  on  the  uncreated 
good  .  .  .  ;  the  other  is  the 
fixing  one's  eyes  on  a  created 
good  as  the  chief  object  .  .  . 
of  one's  happiness.  .  .  .  Now 
the  divine  justice  prepares  a 
punishment  in  hell  suitable  to 
both  these  disorders,  in  punish- 
ing the  conversion  to  the  crea- 
ture .  .  .  with  the  pain  of 
sense  .  .  .  and  .  .  .  the  aver- 
sion from  God,  with  the  pain 
(22)  of  loss.  .  .  .  (23)  This 
pain  [of  loss]  in  substance  is  a 
hell  of  itself  greater  than  all 
the  rest;  for,  says  St.  Thomas, 
"The  worst  damnation  con- 
sists in  this,  that  the  under- 
standing of  man  be  totally  de- 
prived of  divine  light,  and  his 
affection  obstinately  turned 
from  the  goodness  of  God." 
This  pain,  therefore,  is  infinite 
...  if  all  the  other  pleasures 
of  heaven  were  multiplied  a 
thousand  times  over  and  over, 
they  could  never  equal  the  joy 
the  blessed  have  in  beholding 
God  face  to  face  (20,  21). 
.  .  .  Though  in  this  life  we 
have  but  a  very  obscure  knowl- 
edge of  the  infinite  happiness 
which  consists  in  enjoying 
God;  yet  in  hell  the  damned, 
for  their  greater  torment,  will 
have  a  most  lively  comprehen- 
sion of  so  great  a  good;  and 
[know]  that  it  is  through  their 
fault   they   have   lost   it.  .  .  . 


(21) 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

in  Christ,  from  the  Book  of 
Psalms,  thirtieth  chapter, 
twenty-third^^  verse.  (381) 

—  Sin,  remember,  is  a  two- 
fold enormity.  It  is  a  base  con- 
sent to  .  .  .  the  lower  in- 
stincts, to  that  which  is  gross 
and  beastlike;  and  it  is  also  a 
turning  away  from  the  coun- 
sel of  our  higher  nature  .  .  . 
from  the  Holy  God  Himself. 
For  this  reason  mortal  sin  is 
punished  in  hell  by  two  dif- 
ferent forms  of  punishment, 
physical  and  spiritual.  (382) 


Now  of  all  these  spiritual 
pains  by  far  the  greatest  is  the 
pain  of  loss,  so  great,  in  fact, 
that  in  itself  it  is  a  torment 
greater  than  all  the  others. 
Saint  Thomas  .  .  .  says  that 
the  worst  damnation  consists 
in  this  that  the  understanding 
of  man  is  totally  deprived  of 
divine  light  and  his  affection 
obstinately  turned  away  from 
the  goodness  of  God.  God 
...  is  a  being  infinitely  good 
and  therefore  the  loss  of  such  a 
being  must  be  .  .  .  infinitely 
painful. 

In  this  life  we  have  not  a  very 
clear  idea  of  what  such  a  loss 
must  be 

but  the  damned  in  hell,  for 
their  greater  torment,  have  a 
full  understanding  of  that 
which  they  have  lost  and  un- 
derstand that  they  have  lost  it 
through  their  own  sins  and 
have  lost  it  for  ever.  At  the 
very  instant  of  death  the  bonds 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

In  this  life,  the  soul  .  .  .  con- 
tinues in  [the  body]  as  a  fire 
under  ashes,  but  breaking  loose 
from  the  body  is  in  a  violent 
state,  like  fire  lighted  in  [il- 
legible] ...  so  is  a  soul  in 
endeavouring  to  get  to  her 
centre,  which  is  God.  (21-22) 
.  .  .  It  has  sometimes  hap- 
pened that  a  mother  led  into 
captivity  and  parting  from  her 
son  .  .  .  [has]  fallen  down 
dead  .  .  .  merely  by  the  ex- 
cess of  grief;  what  death  will  a 
soul  feel  then  in  parting  with 
God  for  ever?  (22)  .  .  .  God 
[is]  .  .  .  the  centre  of  happi- 
ness to  a  rational  mind  .  .  . 
[and]  to  be  violently  separated 
from  this  object,  and  that  for 
ever,  must  be  a  torment  with- 
out its  equal.  .  .  .   {22) 


[Fifth  Consideration:  The 
Sting  of  Conscience.]  Con- 
sider, that  as  in  dead  bodies 
worms  are  engendered  from 
putrefaction,  so  in  the  damned 
there  arises  a  perpetual  re- 
morse from  the  corruption  of 
sin,  which  is  called  the  sting  of 
conscience.  .  .  .  {2^) 
This  worm,  more  cruel  than 
any  asp,  will  make  three 
wounds  in  the  heart  of  every 
damned  soul,  which  may  be 
further  illustrated  to  us  by  the 
word  of  Innocent  III,  in  his 
book  of  the  Contempt  of  the 
World:  — 'The  memory  will 
afflict,  late  repentance  will 
trouble,  and  want  of  time 
[i.e.,  neglect  of  good  occa- 
sions]     will      torment."  .  .  . 


45 
A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

of  the  flesh  are  broken  asunder 
and  the  soul  at  once  flies 
towards  God  as  towards 

the   centre    of   her   existence. 

•  •  •  (382) 


And  if  it  be  pain  for  a  mother 
to  be  parted  from  her  child. 
.  .  .  O  think  what  pain  .  .  . 
it  must  be  for  the  poor  soul  to 
be  spurned  from  the  presence 
of  the  supremely  good  and  lov- 
ing Creator.  .  .  .  This,  then, 
to  be  separated  for  ever  from 
its  greatest  good,  from  God, 
and  to  feel  the  anguish  of  that 
separation,  knowing  full  well 
that  it  is  unchangeable,  this  is 
the  greatest  torment  which 
the  created  soul  is  capable  of 
bearing.  .  .  . 

The  second  pain  which  will 
afflict  the  souls  of  the  damned 
in  hell  is  the  pain  of  con- 
science. Just  as  in  dead  bodies 
worms  are  engendered  by 
putrefaction  so  in  the  souls  of 
the  lost  there  arises  a  perpetual 
remorse  from  the  putrefaction 
of  sin,  the  sting  of  conscience, 
the  worm,  as  Pope  Innocent 
the  Third  calls  it,  of  the  triple 
sting. 


The  first  sting  inflicted 
by  this  cruel  worm  will  be  the 
memory  of  past  pleasures. 


46 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

First  of  all  then,  the  memory 
will  afflict.  It  is  a  great  torment 
to  [the?]  miserable  wretch  to 
remember  his  past  happiness. 
.  .  .  {26)  He  who  once  gave 
himself  over  to  all  sorts  of 
pleasure;  whose  palate  was 
filled  with  the  greatest  dainties; 
whose  flesh  had  all  the  ease 
imaginable,  and  wallowed  in 
all  kinds  of  impurity,  is  now 
delivered  up  to  everlasting 
lamentations,  suffering,  and 
despair.  .  .  .  {26) 
Judge  what  a  misfortune  it  v^ll 
be,  after  a  great  number  of 
years,  to  remember  a  forbid- 
den pleasure,  a  momentary  de- 
light {26)  vanished  like  a 
shadow,  changed  into  an  eter- 
nal torment.  {2y) 

Consider,  the  second  wound 
of  this  devouring  worm  will  be 
a  late  and  fruitless  sorrow  for 
sins  committed.  {2y)  .  .  .  di- 
vine justice  will  fix  the  under- 
standing of  those  miserable 
wretches,  continually  to  think 
on  the  sin  they  have  com- 
mitted. .  .  .  {2y)  St.  Augus- 
tine .  .  .  says  moreover,  that 
they  will  behold  their  abomi- 
nations as  they  are  in  them- 
selves, because  God  will  im- 
part to  them  his  own  knowl- 
edge of  sin,  so  that  it  will 
appear  to  them  as  it  does  to 
God,  that  is,  an  abyss  of  de- 
formity and  malice.  .  .  .  And 
though  they  shall  deplore  their 
sins  for  ever,  yet  they  shall 
never  come  to  any  composition 
with  God.  .  .  .   {28) 

Consider,  the  third  wound 
which  this  sting  of  conscience 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 


O  what  a  dreadful  memory 
will  that  be!  .  .  .he  who  de- 
lighted in  the  pleasures  of  the 
table  [will  remember]  his  gor- 
geous feasts,  his  dishes  pre- 
pared with  such  delicacy  .  .  . 
(383)  ...  the  impure  and 
adulterous  the  unspeakable 
and  filthy  pleasures  in  which 
they  delighted.  .  .  .  [They 
are]  condemned  to  suffer  in 
hell-fire  for  ages  and  ages.  How 
they  will  rage  and  fume  to 
think  that  they  have  lost  the 
bliss  of  heaven  for  the  dross  of 
earth  ...  for  bodily  com- 
forts, for  a  tingling  of  the 
nerves. 

.  .  .  the  second  sting  of  the 
worm  of  conscience  [will  be]  a 
late  and  fruitless  sorrow  for 
sins  committed.  Divine  justice 
insists  that  the  understanding 
of  those  miserable  wretches  be 
fixed  continually  on  the  sins  of 
which  they  were  guilty  and 
moreover,  as  Saint  Augustine 
points  out, 

God  will  impart  to  them  His 
own  knowledge  of  sin  so  that 
sin  will  appear  to  them  in  all 
its  hideous  malice  as  it  appears 
to  the  eyes  of  God  Himself. 
They  will  behold  their  sins  in 
all  their  foulness  and  repent 
but  it  will  be  too  late 


and  then  they  will  bewail  the 
good  occasions  which  they  neg- 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

causes  in  the  damned.  It  is  an 
infinite  grief  for  having  neg- 
lected so  many  fair  occasions 
of  saving  themselves.  .  .  . 
{28)  [This]  will  be  the  most 
cruel  viper  which  will  gnaw  our 
hearts.  .  .  .  (29)  Was  I  not 
told  of  it  by  my  ghostly 
fathers?  .  .  .  Was  I  not  as- 
sured by  faith,  that  the  end  of 
sin  was  damnation?  And  I 
.  .  .  would  not  open  my  eyes 
to  my  own  good.  .  .  .  There 
was  a  time  when  God  invited 
me  by  so  many  inspirations, 
entreated  me  by  so  many 
voices,  allured  me  by  so  many 
promises,  deterred  me  by  so 
many  threats.  .  .  .  Now  .  .  . 
after  having  shed  a  sea  of  tears, 
I  shall  never  compass  what 
formerly  I  might  have  obtained 
with  one  only  tear.  .  .  .  (29) 
[The  thought  of  this]  will 
make  those  unfortunate  souls, 
with  an  hellish  fury,  to  curse 
sometimes  God,  whom  they 
hate,  as  their  enemy:  some- 
times the  devils,  whom  they 
abhor  as  traitors:  sometimes 
their  companions  who  entice 
them  to  sin;  and  sometimes 
their  ownselves,  for  having 
been  so  mad.  .  .  .  God,  who 
was  once  so  compassionate  of 
my  miseries  .  .  .  will  now  be- 
come inexorable.  (29) 

[Sixth  Consideration:  Despair 
on  account  of  the  extension  of 
the  pains  of  hell.]  Consider, 
that  man  in  this  life,  though 
he  be  capable  of  many  evils, 
he  is  not  capable  of  them  all 
at  once;  because  here  one  evil 


47 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

lected.  This  is  the  last  and 
deepest  and  most  cruel  sting  of 
the  worm  of  conscience. 


The  conscience  will  say:  .  .  . 
You  had  the  sacraments  and 
graces  and  indulgences  of  the 
church  to  aid  you.  You  had  the 
minister  of  God  to  preach  to 
you  ...  if  only  you  had  .  .  . 
repented.  No.  You  would  not. 
.  .  .  God  appealed  to  you, 
threatened  you,  entreated  you 
to  return  to  Him.  (384)  .  .  . 
And  now,  though  you  were  to 
flood  all  hell  with  your  tears 
...  all  that  sea  of  repentance 
would  not  gain  for  you  what 
a  single  tear  of  true  repentance 
shed  during  your  mortal  life 
would  have  gained  for  you. 
.  .  .  [F]illed  with  hellish  fury 
they  curse  themselves  for  their 
folly  and  curse  the  evil  com- 
panions who  have  brought 
them  to  such  ruin  and  curse 
the  devils  who  tempted  them 
in  life  and  now  mock  them  in 
eternity  and  even  revile  and 
curse  the  Supreme  Being 
Whose  goodness  and  patience 
they  scorned  .  .  .  but  Whose 
justice  and  power  they  cannot 
evade. 

—  The  next  spiritual  pain  to 
which  the  damned  are  sub- 
jected is  the  pain  of  extension. 
Man,  in  this  earthly  life, 
though  he  be  capable  of  many 
evils,  is  not  capable  of  them 
all  at  once  inasmuch  as   one 


48 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

corrects  the  other,  and  one 
poison  oftentimes  drives  out 
another,  but  in  hell  it  will  be 
quite  otherwise;  for  pains 
there  will  lend  each  other  a 
fresh  sting.  .  .  .  (31) 
Moreover,  what  has  been 
hitherto  considered,  was  in 
relation  to  the  external  senses: 
but  as  the  internal  powers  are 
more  perfect,  so  they  are  more 
capable  of  pain,  and  therefore, 
will  be  the  more  tormented. 
...  [As  the  damned]  had 
made  an  ill  use  of  all  their 
senses  and  powers,  to  sin,  so 
they  deserved  in  every  one  of 
their  senses  and  powers,  to  be 
punished  with  so  many  pains. 
.  .  .  (32)  The  fancy  will  al- 
ways be  afflicted  with  frightful 
imaginations.  .  .  .  The  sensi- 
tive appetite  will,  like  the  ebb- 
ing and  flowing  of  the  sea,  be 
continually  swelling  and  fall- 
ing .  .  .  into  rage  and  an- 
guish. .  .  .  Their  understand- 
ing will  be  filled  with  interior 
darkness,  more  terrible  than 
the  exterior,  which  fills  their 
prison.  .  .  .  (32) 
There  [sic]  will  be  obstinate 
in  malice,  without  being  able, 
during  the  whole  space  of 
eternal  years,  to  have  the  least 
inclination  to  good,  but  con- 
tinually adding  malice  to  mal- 
ice. ...   (32) 

.  .  .  [Hell]  is  the  centre  of  all 
evils:  and  as  all  things  are 
found  to  be  much  stronger  in 
their  centre  than  elsewhere 
...  so  the  evils  that  are  in 
hell  will  not  only  be  many 
without  number,  but  intense 
without  comparison,  and  pure, 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

evil  corrects  and  counteracts 
another,  just  as  one  poison  fre- 
quently corrects  another.  In 
hell,  on  the  contrary,  one  tor- 
ment instead  of  counteracting 
another,  lends  it  still  greater 
force: 


and,  moreover,  as  the  internal 
faculties  are  more  perfect  than 
the  external  senses,  so  are  they 
more  capable  of  suffering. 

Just  as  every  sense  is  afflicted 
with  a  fitting  torment  so  is 
every  spiritual  faculty; 

the  fancy  with  horrible  images, 
the  sensitive  faculty  with  alter- 
nate longing  and  rage. 


the  mind  and  understanding 
with  an  interior  darkness  more 
terrible  even  than  the  exterior 
darkness  which  reigns  in  that 
dreadful  prison.  The  malice, 
impotent  though  it  be,  which 
possesses  these  demon  souls  is 
an  evil  of  boundless  extension, 
of      limitless      duration.  .  .  . 

{385-86) 


.  .  .  Hell  is  the  centre  of  evils 
and,  as  you  know,  things  are 
more  intense  at  their  centres 
than  at  their  remotest  points. 
There  are  no  contraries  or  ad- 
mixtures of  any  kind  to  temper 
or  soften  in  the  least  the  pains 
of  hell. 


I 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell 
Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

without  mixture.  Pains  in  this 
place  will  have  no  contraries 
to  temper  and  soften  them. 
.  .  .  (33)  Moreover,  things 
that  are  otherwise  good  in 
themselves,  in  this  place  be- 
come bad.  Company,  which 
elsewhere  is  a  comfort  to  the 
afflicted,  will  here  be  their 
greatest  trouble;  the  light 
which  in  other  places  is  so 
much  coveted,  will  be  hated 
here,  more  than  darkness  itself; 
knowledge,  which  in  this 
world  does  so  much  delight 
(33),  will  be  there  more  tor- 
menting than  ignorance.  .  .  . 
In  this  present  life  our  sorrows 
are  either  not  long  or  not 
great,  because  nature  either 
overcomes  them  by  habits,  or 
puts  an  end  to  them  by  falling 
herself  under  the  weight  .  .  . 
[b]ut  in  hell  the  rules  are  quite 
contrary,  for  the  pains  there 
will  always  continue  in  the 
same  state;  intolerable  as  to  in- 
tenseness,  and  endless  as  to 
duration:  ...  As  there  is 
nothing  moderate  in  the  tor- 
ments, so  there  is  no  rest  in 
the  tormented,  who  are  con- 
tinually kept,  not  barely  alive, 
but  in  their  full  senses,  to  have 
greater  feeling  of  their  misery. 
...  It  is  what  the  divine 
Majesty,  injured  by  sinners,  re- 
quires: it  is  what  the  blood  of 
Christ,  that  is  trampled  upon, 
demands:  it  is  what  heaven  it- 
self, despised  and  postponed 
to  filth  and  corruption,  insists 
on.  (34) 

[Seventh  Consideration:  The 
Eternity  of  Pain.]  .  .  .  O  eter- 
nity,  then,  O  eternity!    (39) 


49 


A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 


Nay,  things  which  are  good  in 
themselves  become  evil  in 
hell.  Company,  elsewhere  a 
source  of  comfort  to  the  af- 
flicted, will  be  there  a  con- 
tinual torment:  knowledge,  so 
much  longed  for  as  the  chief 
good  of  the  intellect,  will  there 
be  hated  worse  than  ignorance: 
light,  so  much  coveted  by  all 
creatures  .  .  .  will  be  loathed 
intensely.  In  this  life  our  sor- 
rows are  either  not  very  long 
or  not  very  great  because  na- 
ture either  overcomes  them  by 
habits  or  puts  an  end  to  them 
by  sinking  under  their  weight. 
But  in  hell  the  torments  can- 
not be  overcome  by  habit,  for 
while  they  are  of  terrible  in- 
tensity they  are  at  the  same 
time  of  continual  variety.  .  .  . 
Nor  can  nature  escape  from 
these  .  .  .  tortures  by  suc- 
cumbing to  them  for  the  soul 
is  sustained  and  maintained  in 
evil  so  that  its  suffering  may 
be  the  greater.  .  .  . 


.  .  .  this  is  what  the  divine 
majesty,  so  outraged  by  sin- 
ners, demands,  this  is  what  the 
holiness  of  heaven,  slighted 
and  set  aside  for  the  lustful 
and  low  pleasures  of  the  cor- 
rupt flesh,  requires,  this  is 
what  the  blood  of  the  in- 
nocent Lamb  of  God  .  .  . 
trampled  upon  by  the  vilest  of 
the  vile,  insists  upon.  (3S6) 
.  .  .  Eternity!  O,  dread  and 
dire  word.  Eternity!  {^Sy) 


50 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

Consider,  that  were  the  pains 
of  hell  less  racking,  yet,  being 
never  to  have  an  end,  they 
would  become  infinite.  What 
then  will  it  be,  they  being 
both  intolerable  as  to  sharp- 
ness, and  endless  as  to  dura- 
tion? (38)  .  .  .  were  it  pro- 
posed to  the  damned  to  suffer 
either  by  the  sting  of  a  bee  in 
their  eye  for  a  whole  eternity, 
or  to  undergo  all  the  torments 
of  hell  for  as  many  ages  as 
there  are  (38)  stars  in  heaven, 
they  would  .  .  .  choose  to  be 
thus  miserable  for  so  many 
ages,  and  then  to  see  an  end 
of  their  misery  than  to  endure 
a  pain  so  much  less,  that  was 
to  have  no  end.  (39)  .  .  .  Let 
us  go  on,  and  imagine  ...  a 
mountain  of  this  small  sand 
[as  in  an  hourglass],  so  high 
as  would  reach  from  earth  to 
heaven.  .  .  .  Let  us  then  im- 
agine this  great  mountain  to 
be  multiplied  as  often  as  there 
are  sands  in  the  sea,  leaves  on 
trees,  feathers  on  birds,  scales 
on  fish,  hairs  on  beasts,  atoms 
in  the  air,  drops  of  water  that 
have  rained  or  will  rain  to  the 
day  of  judgment  .  .  .  fa]nd 
yet  .  .  .  we  are  assured  by 
faith  .  .  .  that  all  these  years 
shall  pass,  and  when  over,  none 
of  our  pains  will  be  lessened, 
nor  so  much  as  one  instant 
taken  from  eternity.  (39)  .  .  . 
eternity  expects  thee  in  a  place 
of  torment,  always  the  same, 
with  the  same  pains.  (40) 
...  So  that  we  may  say,  that 
eternity  not  only  every  mo- 
ment tortures  the  damned,  but 


THRANE 

A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 

Even  though  the  pains  of  hell 
were  not  so  terrible  as  they  are 
yet  they  would  become  infinite 
as  they  are  destined  to  last  for 
ever.  But  while  they  are  ever- 
lasting they  are  at  the  same 
time  .  .  .  intolerably  intense, 
unbearably  extensive. 


To  bear  even  the  sting  of  an 
insect  for  all  eternity  would  be 
a  dreadful  torment.  What 
must  it  be,  then,  to  bear  the 
manifold  tortures  of  hell  for 
ever?  .  .  . 


You  have  often  seen  the  sand 
on  the  seashore.  .  .  .  Now 
imagine  a  mountain  of  that 
sand,  a  million  miles  high, 
reaching  from  the  earth  to 
the  farthest  heavens  .  .  .  and 
imagine  such  an  enormous 
mass  of  countless  particles  of 
sand  multiplied  as  often  as 
there  are  leaves  in  the  forest, 
drops  of  water  in  the  mighty 
ocean,  feathers  on  birds,  scales 
on  fish,  hairs  on  animals, 
atoms  in  the  vast  expanse  of 
the  air:  .  .  .  Yet  at  the  end 
of  that  immense  stretch  of 
time  not  even  one  instant  of 
eternity  could  be  said  to  have 
ended.  (387) 

...  An  eternity  of  endless 
agony  .  .  .  without  one  ray 
of  hope,  without  one  moment 
of  cessation  .  .  .  (388)  .  .  . 
an  eternity,  every  instant  of 
which  is  itself  an  eternity  of 
woe.  (389) 


51 


A  Portrait  of  the  Artist 


.  .  .  Men,  reasoning  always 
as  men,  are  astonished  that 
God  should  mete  out  an  ever- 
lasting and  infinite  punish- 
ment in  the  fires  of  hell  for  a 
single  grievous  sin.  They  rea- 
son thus  because,  blinded  by 
the  gross  illusion  of  the  flesh 
and  the  darkness  of  human  un- 
derstanding they  are  unable  to 
comprehend  the  hideous  mal- 
ice of  mortal  sin.  .  .  . 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell 

Hell  Opened  to  Christians 

that  to  the  damned  every  mo- 
ment is  turned  into  so  many 
eternities,  {^i) 

Consider,  that  men  reason- 
ing always  as  men,  are  aston- 
ished that  God,  for  so  short 
a  pleasure  of  a  sinner,  should 
have  decreed  an  everlasting 
punishment  in  the  fire  of  hell. 
.  .  .  But  ought  not  we  rather 
to  wonder  at  the  astonishment 
of  worldlings,  grounded  on  the 
ignorance  of  spiritual  things 
[?]  "The  sensual  man  per- 
ceiveth  not  the  things  that  are 
of  the  spirit  of  God.  .  .  ."  — 
I  Cor.  ii.  14.  If  sinners  did  but 
comprehend  the  malice  of 
their  sin,  they  would  soon 
change  their  wonder.  .  .  . 
{^1)  Consider  .  .  .  that  every 
mortal  sin  is  either  a  tacit  or  ex- 
press contempt  of  the  divine 
will,  and  an  injury  to  God 
...  in  a  manner  infinite. 
.  .  .  (^1-^2)  .  .  .  if  the  pain 
due  to  the  offenders  of  God 
were  to  end,  both  the  judge 
and  the  sentence  would  be 
condemned  .  .  .  the  malice  of 
sin  is  so  exorbitant  as  not  to 
be  atoned  and  satisfied  for,  by 
the  good  works  of  all  creatures; 
and,  therefore,  to  pay  this 
debt,  it  was  necessary  the  Son 
of  God  should  take  from  his 
veins,  as  a  just  price,  the  treas- 
ures of  his  divine  blood.  (42) 

This  extensive  listing  of  passages  has  seemed  necessary  in 
order  to  make  it  clear  that  when  I  call  Hell  Opened  to 
Christians  the  primary  source  of  Joyce's  sermon  on  hell  I 
am  not  basing  my  judgment  on  mere  analogies,  random 
parallels,  or  echoes  but  on  actual  correspondences,  following 


...  sin  ...  is  a  transgres- 
sion of  His  law  and  God  would 
not  be  God  if  He  did  not  pun- 
ish the  transgressor. 


.  .  .  To  retrieve  the  conse- 
quences of  that  sin  [Adam's 
and  Eve's]  the  Only  Begotten 
Son  of  God  .  .  .  lived  and 
suffered  and  died  a  most  pain- 
ful death.  ...   (389) 


52  THRANE 

in  the  same  sequence  and  often  expressed  in  the  same  words, 
and  so  conspicuous  as  to  be  undeniable.  I  do  not  mean  that 
Joyce  simply  parroted  Pinamonti,  even  in  the  most  similar 
passages.  But  the  fact  remains  that  much  of  the  famous 
sermon  on  hell  (recently  elevated  to  textbook  rank)  was 
cribbed. 

Three  questions  should  now  be  considered:  the  relation  of 
both  works  to  their  parent  tradition;  Joyce's  adaptation  of  his 
source;  and  the  theological  milieu  through  which  Pinamonti's 
tract  probably  came  to  Joyce's  attention. 

Discussion  of  the  first  of  these  will  reveal  another  and 
important  reason  why  an  unmistakable  relationship  between 
the  two  works  can  be  demonstrated  only  through  side-by-side 
comparison.  The  melodramatic  impressiveness  of  both  in- 
clines a  reader  to  ascribe  more  originality  and  singularity  to 
them  than  either  author  would  have  claimed.  The  truth  is 
that  much  of  their  content  has  indeed  been  ''the  common 
possession  of  devotional  writers  for  hundreds  of  years/'  ^^ 
and  far  more  so  than  has  been  pointed  out.  For  instance,  in 
Consideration  26  of  the  manual  Preparation  for  Death,  St. 
Alphonsus  Liguori,  founder  of  the  Redemptorists  and  author 
of  the  "old  neglected  book"  of  Stephen's  devotions,  writes 
that  the  smoke  of  the  ''utterly  dark"  fire  of  hell  will  form 
"a  storm  of  darkness"  to  torment  the  damned;  that,  accord- 
ing to  St.  Bonaventure,  the  stench  of  one  of  their  bodies 
would  kill  all  on  earth;  that  the  pain  of  earthly  fire,  "created 
for  our  use,"  cannot  be  compared  with  that  of  hellfire,  "made 
.  .  .  purposely  to  torment  the  damned,"  each  of  whom  "shall 
be  in  himself  a  furnace  of  fire"  —  the  blood  in  the  veins, 
even  the  marrow  of  the  bones.  Yet  these  are  as  nothing  be- 
side the  infinite  pain  of  losing  "God,  who  is  an  infinite  good." 
Unaided  human  reason  may  question  the  justice  of  punish- 
ing a  moment's  sin  with  an  eternity  of  pain;  but  sin's  infinite 
offense  merits  no  less.  And,  since  the  creature  "is  not  capable 
of  suffering  pain  infinite  in  .  .  .  intensity,  God  inflicts  pun- 
ishment infinite  in  extension."  ^^  These  and  many  other  pas- 
sages echo  Arnall's  words  so  closely  that  anyone  unacquainted 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  53 

with  Hell  Opened  to  Christians  could  plausibly  suggest  this 
section  of  Preparation  for  Death  as  their  source.  And  Liguori 
is  but  one  of  many  who  have  written  of  hell  in  a  similar 
vein  over  a  period  spanning  centuries. 

Professor  Rogers  holds  that,  Gibbon  and  popular  opinion 
notwithstanding,  detailed  pictures  of  hell  torments  are  at 
most  a  minor  element  in  Christian  writings  of  the  early  cen- 
turies; and  E.  B.  Pusey's  catena  of  patristic  opinion,  although 
part  of  a  book  designed  to  prove  the  universality  of  belief 
in  everlasting  punishment,  on  the  whole  supports  this  view.^^ 
Luridly  detailed  portrayals  of  horrors,  though  stemming  from 
earlier  apocryphal  writings,  are  the  work  of  monks  and  friars 
of  the  later  Middle  Ages.^*  Still,  although  the  church  has 
never  pronounced  on  the  matter,  from  earliest  times  writers 
have  located  hell  within  the  earth  as  the  place  farthest  from 
God  and  fittest  to  sustain  heat  and  the  darkness  that,  as 
Aquinas  says,  the  thick  cloudy  fire  and  the  massed  bodies  of 
the  damned  will  produce.^^  Agreeing  that  mortal  sin  merits 
no  less  than  an  eternity  of  torment,  ancients  and  moderns, 
Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics,  have  drawn  vividly  the  pains 
of  the  fire  that  burns  corporeally  forever  without  consuming. 
Tertullian's  overly  familiar  passage  imagines  the  proud  kings, 
poets,  and  tragedians  dissolving  in  the  lake  of  brimstone; 
Gregory  the  Great  warns  readers  that  a  certain  dissolute 
monk's  vision  of  the  faggots  prepared  to  burn  him  was  but 
a  type  of  hellfire's  torments,  adapted  to  our  limited  under- 
standings; one  Drithelm,  according  to  Bede,  saw  the  souls 
of  the  damned  in  globes  of  black  fire,  rising  and  sinking  like 
sparks;  Jonathan  Edwards  exhorts  those  hardened  in  sin  to 
imagine  passing  even  a  quarter-hour  in  a  glowing  furnace.^^ 
And  yet,  as  in  Arnall  or  Pinamonti,  such  pains  ''are  nothing 
in  comparison  with  the  loss  of  God."  ^^  The  lost,  says  the 
seventeenth-century  Jesuit  Lessius  (Leys),  feel  this  infinite 
loss  eternally  without  the  slightest  mitigation;  Aquinas  holds 
that  they  can  will  only  evil,  envying  the  blessed  and  hating 
God  himself  for  their  pangs.^^ 

Even  a  cursory  account  like  the  foregoing  will  demonstrate 


54  THRANE 

that,  even  if  Pinamonti  had  never  written,  the  sermon  on 
hell  still  could  not  have  sprung  spontaneously  from  Joyce's 
brain.  A  glance  over  the  more  immediate  ancestry  of  both 
works  will  make  this  still  clearer.  Sullivan  holds  that  the 
similar  images  in  passages  of  the  sermon  and  of  the  Sodality 
Manual  indicate  a  ''more  than  incidental  connection"  be- 
tween them.  Yet  identical  images  occur  in  many  writers, 
especially  in  the  Jesuit  scholars  and  preachers  of  seventeenth- 
century  Europe.  In  a  widely  imitated  section  of  his  De  per- 
fectionibus  moribusque  divinis  (1620)  the  gifted  Flemish 
Jesuit  Leonard  Lessius  holds,  like  Liguori,  that,  in  the  lake 
of  brimstone  twenty  thousand  feet  wide,  fires  will  rage  within 
the  body,  bowels,  and  bones  of  the  damned.^^  Contempla- 
tions of  the  State  of  Man  (1684),  an  Enghsh  work  once 
attributed  to  Jeremy  Taylor,  frequently  urges  the  torment 
of  bearing  forever  even  a  slight  pain  (the  scorching  of  a 
finger,  an  insect's  sting,  a  pinprick),  let  alone  those  of  hell,^^ 
as  in  ArnalFs  sermon,  the  Manual,  and  a  score  of  other 
works.  The  probable  source  of  the  Contemplations  is  the 
treatise  On  the  Difference  between  the  Temporal  and  the 
Eternal  {ca.  1640).  Here  the  Spanish  Jesuit  J.  E.Nieremberg 
describes  the  stench  of  the  damned  (one  of  the  eight  pains 
of  hell)  in  terms  markedly  similar  to  Pinamonti's  and  Joyce's, 
even  to  citing  the  authority  of  St.  Bonaventure.^^  'The 
Egyptians,"  says  the  esteemed  Catholic  scholar,  Bishop  Chal- 
loner,  "were  in  a  sad  condition  when,  for  three  days,  the 
whole  kingdom  was  covered  with  a  dreadful  darkness";  yet, 
unlike  them,  the  damned  in  hell  shall  never  see  morning  but 
shall  ever  endure  "the  intolerable  stench  of  those  half-putri- 
fied  carcases  which  are  broiling  there."  ^^ 

Another  of  Father  Arnall's  hyperboles  that  appears  in  the 
Manual  seeks  to  convey  the  vastness  of  eternity  by  means 
of  a  mountain  of  fine  sand,  carried  away  by  a  bird  at  the  rate 
of  a  grain  every  million  years,  and  then  successively  rising 
and  falling  as  often  as  there  are  stars  in  heaven,  leaves  on 
trees,  etc.  —  at  the  end  of  which  inconceivable  period,  eter- 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  55 

nity  will  not  even  have  begun.  Striking  though  this  image  is, 
its  inclusion  in  any  Catholic  book  of  devotion  proves  nothing 
at  all:  it  is  virtually  a  literary  convention  in  such  v^orks.  Who, 
asks  Farrar  in  1877,  has  not  heard  sermons  ''to  the  effect 
that  if  every  leaf  of  the  forest  trees,  and  every  grain  of  the 
ocean  sands  stood  for  billions  of  years,  and  all  these  billions 
were  exhausted,  you  would  still  be  no  nearer  even  to  the 
beginning  of  eternity  than  at  the  first  .  .  /'?  ^^  Farrar  does 
not  stay  for  an  answer;  however.  Father  G.  B.  Manni,  still 
another  Jesuit  of  the  seventeenth  century,  writes  that  so 
many  ages  ''as  there  are  stars  in  heaven,  drops  of  water  in 
the  sea,  and  motes  in  the  air,  and  particles  of  dust  in  the 
earth"  would  not  make  up  eternity.  Let  all  the  space  between 
earth  and  heaven,  he  continues,  be  filled  with  fine  sand,  and 
every  one  hundred  thousand  million  [sic]  ages  let  an  angel 
carry  away  a  single  grain.  Could  the  damned  believe  that 
after  this  their  torments  would  end,  they  would  rejoice.^* 
Liguori  agrees,  however,  that  this  cannot  be,  even  after  so 
many  ages  as  there  are  grains  of  sand  in  the  sea  or  leaves 
on  the  trees,  and  Nieremberg  conveys  this  stern  denial  in 
almost  identical  terms:  "cuantos  hojas  hay  en  los  campos, 
cuantos  granos  de  arena  hay  en  la  tierra,"  etc.^^  Along  with 
the  familiar  mountain  of  sand  (angelically  reduced  at  the 
relatively  rapid  pace  of  a  grain  a  year),  Jeremias  Drexel,  S.J., 
imagines  a  strip  of  parchment  girdling  the  earth,  closely  in- 
scribed with  small  figure  9's.  "And  yet  this  [figure]  is  nothing 
to  Eternity  J'  ^e  'pi^g  ]^[^f^  j-j^^^  carries  off  grains  of  sand  in 
Father  Arnall's  illustration  may  be  found  in  Heinrich  Suso 
(or  Seuse),  the  saintly  Dominican  mystic  of  the  fourteenth 
century:  if  there  were  a  millstone  thick  as  earth  and  broad 
as  all  heaven,  and  "if  there  came  a  little  bird  every  hundred 
thousand  years,  and  took  from  the  stone  as  much  as  the  tenth 
part  of  a  grain  of  millet,"  the  lost  would  wish  nothing  more 
than  that  their  torments  might  end  with  the  stone  —  and 
yet  this  cannot  be.^^ 
There  is  no  need  of  more  examples  to  prove  that,  although 


56  THRANE 

Joyce  is  specifically  indebted  to  Pinamonti,  his  model  is  in 
turn  part  of  a  literary  and  religious  tradition  so  extensive  and 
widely  diffused  that  no  distinct  indebtedness  on  Pinamonti's 
side  (save  to  his  fellov^  Jesuit  preachers)  seems  demonstrable. 
For  the  same  reasons  it  seems  equally  clear  that  any  effort  to 
specify  the  Portrait  sermon's  sources  on  the  basis  of  isolated 
resemblances  in  expression  or  imagery  will  fail  through  the 
very  abundance  of  such  parallels.  Only  a  work  whose  organi- 
zation, scale,  and  proportion  also  clearly  correspond  to  Joyce's 
can  even  be  considered  as  a  primary  source,  and  to  my  knowl- 
edge all  of  these  requirements  are  met  conclusively  only  by 
Hell  Opened  to  Christians. 

Since  not  only  the  themes  of  the  Portrait  sermon  but  even 
its  modes  of  expression  occur  so  frequently  in  Catholic  de- 
votional writing,  especially  in  the  work  of  Jesuits,  it  is  hard 
fully  to  understand  Father  Noon's  objection  that  the  ''purely 
negative  and  harrowing  sermon  ...  is  neither  Catholic  nor 
Ignatian."  ^s  Jt  js  true,  of  course,  that,  unlike  the  writings 
of  Suso  or  Liguori,  Arnall's  sermon  and  Pinamonti's  tract 
do  not  lead  the  reader  beyond  threats  of  punishment  to  con- 
siderations of  the  divine  love  and  mercy;  their  sole  purpose 
is,  in  the  latter's  words,  "to  fright  us  into  our  duty"  (Hell 
Opened,  p.  35).  But  can  their  teaching  be  called  not  "char- 
acteristic" solely  because  it  is  partial,  incomplete?  Before  the 
great  Dominican  Luis  de  Granada,  surely  an  unexceptionable 
authority,  goes  on  to  speak  of  hell  as  "a  dark  and  obscure 
lake  under  the  earth,  ...  in  which  is  heard  only  the  groan- 
ing ...  of  the  tormentors  and  the  tormented,"  he  points 
out  that  meditations  on  hell  are  profitable  in  moving  us  to 
do  penance  and  in  making  us  fear  God  and  hate  sin.^^  That 
is,  fear  of  the  Lord  in  itself  is  not  wisdom,  but  it  is  the 
indispensable  prelude  to  wisdom.  And  the  hterature  of  re- 
ligious fear  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  Middle  Ages  or 
the  Counter-Reformation.  As  will  be  shown  further  on,  at 
least  one  picture  of  hellfire  as  lurid  as  Arnall's  or  Pinamonti's, 
written  by  a  Redemptorist  father  and  printed  permissu  su- 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  57 

perioruniy  was  widely  circulated  in  the  late  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, arousing  the  indignation  of  liberals,  the  annoyance  of 
some  Catholics,  and  —  perhaps  —  the  interest  of  James  Joyce. 
Pinamonti,  of  course,  could  not  have  dreamed  of  claiming 
uniqueness  for  his  book,  and  to  recognize  Joyce's  depend- 
ence on  a  source  is  not  to  deny  the  originality  of  the  retreat 
episode.  ArnalFs  explanation  of  the  word  ''retreat"  {Portrait, 
pp.  ^61-6^)  has  no  counterpart  in  the  Italian's  book,  nor  has 
the  synopsis  of  the  next  day's  sermon  on  death  and  judg- 
ment (pp.  364-68)  or  the  exposition  of  the  scheme  of  re- 
demption that  precedes  the  sermon  on  hell  and  the  exhor- 
tations that  conclude  each  half.  Anyone  looking  for  parallel 
descriptions  of  death  and  burial  or  of  the  souls  thronging  to 
judgment  will  find  them  readily  enough,^<*  but  this  is  a  point- 
less labor  in  the  case  of  a  writer  educated  by  priests.  And,  for 
the  most  part,  what  Joyce  has  taken  from  his  model  he  has 
made  his  own.  The  close  punctuation,  the  inept,  sometimes 
obscure  syntax  of  the  original  become  clear  and  swift;  archaic 
or  technical  terms  beyond  schoolboys'  range  are  dropped  or 
substituted;  even  an  ambiguous  pronoun  reference  (in  St. 
Augustine's  opinion  that  the  lost  will  behold  sin  as  God  does) 
is  corrected.  Participial  constructions  and  excessive  periodic- 
ity are  replaced  by  full  predication  and  more  colloquial  sen- 
tence structure,  yet  at  the  same  time  the  sermonistic  parallel- 
ism, balance,  and  suspensions  of  the  original  are  made  more 
striking.  And  Joyce  does  not  always  copy  his  model's  order, 
scale,  and  emphasis  in  detail,  even  in  the  morning  sermon. 
His  taunting  devils  are  far  more  explicit  and  display  a  moral 
fastidiousness  unknown  to  Pinamonti's.  His  elaboration  upon 
the  reek  of  the  ''jellylike  mass  of  hquid  corruption"  is  matched 
or  surpassed  elsewhere,  but  not  in  his  model's  relatively 
squeamish  analysis  of  hell's  stench.  The  lack  of  any  miti- 
gating reference  to  heaven  and  the  divine  love  by  Arnall  is 
not  truly  Ignatian.  But  when  Father  Arnall  warns  against 
yielding  to  the  promptings  of  corrupt  nature  in  place  of 
"fixing  one's  eyes  on  a  created  good,"  and  when  he  greatly 


58  THRANE 

simplifies  Pinamonti's  logical  demonstration  that  infinite  pun- 
ishment is  justified  by  the  infinite  enormity  of  sin,  his  prac- 
tice accords  with  the  Ignatian  precept  that  devotions  should 
be  adapted  to  the  condition  of  the  exercitant.  For  the  same 
reason  he  gives  carnal  sins  added  emphasis  before  his  adoles- 
cent hearers  and  presents  the  lost  souls'  reviling  of  God  as 
the  culmination  of  maHce  (Portrait,  p.  ^8^)  instead  of  merely 
ranking  it  with  other  expressions  of  their  rage.  Obviously  the 
third  point  of  Pinamonti's  sixth  consideration  —  the  despair 
of  the  damned  on  comparing  their  lot  with  that  of  the  saints 
—  is  so  unsuited  to  Joyce's  dramatic  purpose  that  it  becomes 
the  only  point  omitted  altogether.  It  bluntly  asserts  the  an- 
cient and  widely  held  belief  that  "God  and  his  saints  rejoice" 
at  the  pangs  of  the  damned  as  a  sign  of  divine  justice  fulfilled. 
Since  even  Aquinas  experienced  difficulties  in  justifying  this 
idea,^^  it  would  be  absurd  to  have  Arnall  expound  it  before 
boys  insufficiently  steeled  in  the  school  of  doublethink  to 
reconcile  it  with  their  preacher's  concluding  words  on  the 
divine  love. 

Considered  as  a  whole,  Joyce's  version  emerges  less  as  an 
abridgment  than  as  a  synopsis  or  precis,  tersely  setting  forth 
under  seven  points  what  Pinamonti  develops  leisurely  under 
twenty-one  with  more-than-ample  exempla,  analogies,  cited 
authorities,  synonymous  repetitions,  and  overwhelming  ques- 
tions. Joyce  keeps  all  these  devices,  especially  repetition,  but 
his  judiciously  sparing  use  of  them  invariably  heightens  the 
desired  effect  rather  than  diffusing  it  by  excess.  To  convey 
the  vastness  of  hellfire,  Pinamonti  employs  a  (relatively) 
tame  picture  of  sinners  burning  from  within  and  a  story 
(told  by  St.  Caesarius)  concerning  the  devil's  admission  to 
a  certain  soldier,  both  buttressed  by  the  analogy  of  an  un- 
vented  oven  and  the  authorities  of  Chrysostom,  Isaiah,  Job, 
and  the  Second  (sic  for  A.V.  Eighty-third)  Psalm.  Joyce,  by 
repeating  and  particularizing  words  and  images,  tautens  the 
passage  into  the  epitome  of  fiery  terror,  tempered  just  enough 
by  the  bathos  of  the  devil's  fusible  mountain,  and  prunes 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  59 

away  all  else.  Conversely,  Arnall's  reiteration  that  God  can- 
not let  pass  one  venial  sin,  even  if  doing  so  would  end  all  the 
world's  misery,  seems  to  be  the  development  of  what  Pina- 
monti  only  adumbrates  {Hell  Opened,  pp.  41-42),  although 
it  is  probably  reinforced  by  memories  of  an  1897  Lenten 
retreat  sermon  by  a  Father  Jeffcoat  which,  says  his  brother, 
aroused  in  Joyce  a  ''brain-storm  of  terror  and  remorse."  ^^ 
But,  if  we  cannot  always  see  the  rationale  of  Joyce's  selections 
from  his  source,  it  is  at  least  clear  why  many  exempla  are 
omitted.  By  the  principle  of  anticipation  the  boys  might 
feel  the  hellishness  of  living  with  a  scolding  wife  (Company 
of  the  Damned,  Hell  Opened,  pp.  i^,  ly),  but  probably  not 
the  sense  for  the  apposite  gesture  that  prompted  a  deceived 
husband  to  lock  up  his  wife  with  the  decaying  corpse  of  her 
lover  (Sorrow  for  Sins  Committed,  pp.  2y-28).  It  would  be 
tactless  of  Arnall  to  take  for  granted  his  hearers'  familiarity 
with  a  losing  gambler's  rages,  as  Pinamonti  does  (Company 
of  the  Devils,  p.  ij).  And  theatregoers  too  restless  to  endure 
a  play  without  comic  entr'actes  (Unchangeableness  of  Pain, 
p.  40)  would  be  as  far  beyond  the  college  boys'  experience 
as  the  "noble  lord,"  perhaps  of  contemporary  Italy,  who 
tosses  on  his  bed  of  down,  foaming  and  cursing,  when  pinched 
with  the  colic  (Intenseness  of  the  Pains  of  Hell,  p.  34). 

There  remains  the  interesting  question  of  how  Joyce  came 
by  Pinamonti's  obscure  tract.  Any  answer  to  this  will  neces- 
sarily be  conjectural  in  part,  but  clues  in  Joyce's  second  novel, 
seen  in  relation  to  the  movement  in  nineteenth-century  re- 
ligious thought  to  which  they  allude,  provide  a  larger  factual 
basis  than  those  underlying  several  current  articles  of  faith 
about  Joyce.  Joyce  may,  of  course,  have  found  his  copy  dur- 
ing rambles  like  those  of  Stephen  Daedalus  among  the  Dublin 
bookstalls  "which  offered  old  directories  and  volumes  of  ser- 
mons and  unheard-of  treatises  ...  at  ...  a  penny  each  or 
three  for  twopence"  {Stephen  Hero,  p.  1^^;  cf.  Ulysses,  p. 
239).  It  is  now  known  that  when  he  arrived  at  Zurich  in 
October,  1904,  Joyce  was  at  work  on  the  eleventh  chapter  of 


6o  THRANE 

Stephen  Hero,  set  at  Belvedere  College,  and  that  he  had 
completed  the  preceding  ten  chapters,  not  merely  the  lone 
first  chapter  and  notes  which  Gorman  mentions,  well  before 
his  departure  from  Dublin  earlier  that  year.  Since  it  is  there- 
fore likely  that  the  retreat  episode  alluded  to  in  the  surviving 
portion  {Stephen  Hero,  pp.  S^SV)  ^^s  already  written,  there 
is  no  need  to  conjecture  how  Joyce  managed  to  acquire  Hell 
Opened  while  he  was  abroad.  But  to  assume  that  he  simply 
came  across  Pinamonti's  tract  in  some  Josh  Strong's  book- 
shop is  to  beg  the  important  question  of  why  and  how  he 
singled  out  this  work,  so  perfectly  suited  to  his  needs,  from 
the  scores  of  similar  books,  tracts,  and  sermons  that  crowded 
Dublin  bookstalls.  It  is  unlikely  that  J.  F.  Byrne,  who  remem- 
bers Hell  Opened,  read  the  tract  or  called  Joyce's  attention 
to  it;  had  he  done  either,  he  would  at  least  have  pointed 
out  the  indebtedness.  It  is  far  more  probable  that  Joyce  de- 
liberately sought  out  the  tract  because  he  knew  he  could  put 
it  to  use  and  that  he  knew  this  because  he  was  acquainted, 
even  famihar,  with  the  discussion  of  doctrines  concerning 
hell  carried  on  in  England  and  Europe  during  the  later  nine- 
teenth century.  As  I  will  show,  it  would  have  been  as  hard 
for  a  serious  undergraduate  of  the  i88o's  to  remain  ignorant 
of  the  eternal  punishment  question,  of  the  larger  hope  that 
many  devout  persons  wished  to  trust  less  faintly,  as  it  would 
have  been  for  an  Oxford  student  of  the  1840's  not  to  hear  of 
the  apostolic  claims  of  the  Church  of  England.  And  in  the 
Wandering  Rocks  episode  of  Ulysses,  probably  written  early 
in  1919,  there  are  clear  indications  that  Joyce  had  heard  of 
it.  ''That  book  by  the  Belgian  Jesuit,  Le  Nombre  des  Elus" 
(Ulysses,  p.  220),  on  which  Father  Conmee  muses  approv- 
ingly, is  Le  Rigorisme,  la  doctrine  du  salut  et  la  question  du 
nombre  des  elus  (Brussels,  1899)  by  the  distinguished  Lou- 
vain  professor,  Auguste  Castelein,  S.J.  It  argues,  like  other 
books  published  closer  to  Joyce's  home,  against  the  belief 
prevalent  during  the  Middle  Ages  and  sustained  well  into 
the  modern  era  by  Cornelius  a  Lapide  (Portrait,  p.  503), 
Massillon,  and  others  that  the  damned  incalculably  out- 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  61 

number  the  saved  or  even  those  in  purgatory .^^  It  does  not 
matter  whether  Joyce  read  this  scarce  book,  which  found 
much  Cathohc  approval  despite  a  scathing  attack  on  its 
hberahsm  by  the  Redemptorist  F.  X.  Godts.  What  matters 
is  that  only  one  more  than  casually  acquainted  with  the 
question  of  eternal  punishment  and  its  ancillary  issues  could 
have  known  of  the  work's  existence  or  of  its  message's  dra- 
matic appropriateness  to  the  thoughts  of  Conmee,  at  his 
ease  in  both  worlds.  And  when  in  the  same  episode  Haines 
confidently  imputes  to  Stephen  an  idee  fixe  related  to  eternal 
punishment,  it  may  be  more  than  the  piece  of  aesthetic-tea 
chatter  it  appears.  As  will  be  seen,  Stephen's  reported  per- 
plexity on  finding  "no  trace  of  hell  in  ancient  Irish  [Hebrew?] 
myth"  can  be  taken,  and  may  have  been  designed,  as  an 
irreverent  capsule  parody  of  the  exegeses  by,  say,  F.  W.  Farrar 
or  E.  H.  Plumptre.  I  believe,  in  fact,  that  Buck  Mulhgan's 
diagnosis  of  Stephen  (''they  drove  his  wits  astray  ...  by 
visions  of  hell")  contains  more  substance  than  one  expects 
from  this  spirit  that  denies.  The  Portrait  Stephen's  half- 
formed  vision  of  a  priestly  vocation  dissolves  before  the 
threatened  loss  of  his  freedom  —  a  consideration  weakened 
by  its  anticlimactic  juxtaposition  with  his  sudden  awareness 
of  overtones  of  effeminacy  in  the  priesthood  and  of  his  dis- 
like of  early  rising.  And  the  sight  of  hell  vanishes,  leaving 
not  a  rack  behind.  But  the  earlier  Stephen-in-revolt  exclaimed 
as  strongly  as  John  Stuart  Mill  against  "obscene,  stinking 
hells"  and  a  millennium  of  "fried  atheists"  {Stephen  HerOy 
p.  232),  and  the  creator  of  both  Stephens  reverted  mockingly 
to  the  topic  in  one  of  his  few  epistolary  references  to  Dedalus, 
over  a  decade  later.^*  I  do  not  propose  to  add  another  shelf 
of  books  to  the  Alexandrian  library  that  Joyce  is  already 
alleged  to  have  assimilated  in  some  twenty  years,  but  I  be- 
lieve that  there  are  enough  clear  indications  in  his  works  to 
warrant  an  examination  of  certain  phases  of  the  eternal  pun- 
ishment question  that  may  have  led  him  to  Hell  Opened  to 
Christians  and  to  larger  considerations  as  well. 
The  movement  in  Protestant  theology  toward  subjectivity 


62  THRANE 

and  humanism  during  the  later  nineteenth  century  was  pri- 
marily a  sympathetic  response  to  the  increasing  dominance 
of  humanitarian  secularism  and  scientific  —  especially  evolu- 
tionary —  modes  of  thought,  despite  the  unquestionable  im- 
portance of  Schleiermacher,  Coleridge,  and  F.  D.  Maurice. 
It  is  impossible  even  to  outline  that  movement  here  (much 
less  Cathohc  reaction  to  it);  but,  during  its  course,  such 
liberal  and  philanthropic  Anglicans  as  A.  P.  Stanley  and 
Charles  Kingsley,  like  the  freethinkers  and  rationalists  they 
opposed,  increasingly  found  it  as  repugnant  to  believe  in  an 
afterlife  of  eternal  physical  and  spiritual  torment  for  a  huge 
majority  of  the  human  race  ^^  as  to  accept  a  purely  substi- 
tutionary theory  of  the  Atonement  or  Moses'  authorship  of 
the  Pentateuch.  Those  who  attacked  eternal  punishment  did 
not  form  a  concerted  movement,  and  no  one  of  them  is  en- 
tirely typical.  Their  opponents,  Catholics  especially,  lumped 
them  all  as  Universalists,  although  Anglicans  like  Farrar  and 
Plumptre  repudiated  this  eschatology,  which  is  at  least  as  old 
as  Origen.  But  learned  and  articulate  Universalists  like 
Andrew  Jukes  played  a  strong  part  in  the  movement,  and 
Farrar's  position  especially  is  often  difficult  to  discriminate 
from  theirs.  All  these  writers  affirm  the  punishment  of  sin, 
although  they  find  it  to  consist  primarily  in  the  pain  of  loss 
rather  than  that  of  sense;  but  they  deny  that  such  punish- 
ment is  purely  retributive,  as  Pinamonti  represents  it.  (Joyce's 
Stephen  found  no  sense  of  retribution  beyond  the  grave  in 
''Irish  myth"  [Ulysses,  p.  2^^].)  Instead,  they  affirm  on  the 
basis  of  Scripture  and  inner  conviction  that  the  majority  of 
souls  —  not  all  —  enter  the  future  with  the  same  capacities 
for  repentance,  growth,  and  education  that  they  had  in  life.^^ 
On  philological  grounds  they  reject  the  mistranslations  and 
accreted  meanings  of  ''hell,"  "damnation,"  and  "eternal." 

Such  attacks  increased  noticeably  in  the  years  following 
Essays  and  Reviews,  a  volume  pervaded  with  similar  ideas 
on  continuing  spiritual  growth  in  the  lives  of  men  and  na- 
tions. An  adequate  account  would  deal  with  F.  W.  Robert- 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  63 

son,  Erskine  of  Linlathen,  A.  R.  Symonds,  and  others  as  well; 
but  in  terms  of  popular  impact  the  names  of  F.  D.  Maurice 
and  F.  W.  Farrar  lead  all  the  rest.  In  his  Theological  Essays 
of  1853,  which  cost  him  his  professorship,  Maurice  held  that 
the  punishment  of  evil,  though  retributive,  may  also  be 
reformatory,  and  he  denounced  all  dogmatic  playing  with 
Scripture  texts.  To  know  the  infinite  love  of  God  as  mani- 
fested in  Christ  is  eternal  life,  while  eternal  punishment  is 
the  being  without  this  knowledge.^^  A  direct  and  influential 
(again,  upon  the  general  public)  consequence  of  this  book 
involved  the  career  of  John  William  Colenso,  future  penta- 
teuchal  critic.  The  Low  Church  Record's  noisy  opposition  to 
his  consecration  as  missionary  bishop  of  Natal,  following  his 
dedicating  a  volume  of  sermons  to  Maurice,^^  did  not  suc- 
ceed. However,  Colenso's  continuing  reflections  on  the  doc- 
trine of  eternal  punishment  led  him  to  reprehend  it  in  1855 
from  the  viewpoint  of  a  working  missionary  (in  vigorous 
terms  that  Father  Conmee's  comfortable  musings  travesty) 
and  to  renounce  it  altogether,  on  exegetical  grounds,  five 
years  later.^^  Hence,  after  the  appearance  of  The  Pentateuch 
and  Book  of  Joshua  Critically  Examined  (1862  ff.)  and 
Colenso's  testimony  at  his  subsequent  trial,  several  reviewers 
found  a  relation  between  the  later  book's  enormities  and  the 
Bishop's  earlier  doctrinal  unsoundness.^^  If  Colenso's  and 
H.  B.  Wilson's  (of  Essays  and  Reviews)  trials  for  heresy 
were  indirect  consequences  of  Maurice's  teaching,  their  ac- 
quittals in  turn  were  a  major  influence  on  the  closing  of 
ranks  that  took  place  among  religionists  in  the  following 
years.  In  its  decision  reversing  the  1862  verdict  of  the  Court 
of  Arches  condemning  Wilson  and  another  essayist,  the 
Judicial  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  had  decided  that 
the  expression  of  a  hope  that  the  punishment  of  sinners 
might  be  terminable  did  not  contradict  the  teaching  of  the 
Church  of  England.  Protestants  of  several  factions  and  —  to 
some  extent  —  Anglo-  and  Roman  Catholics  as  well  were 
now  almost  under  the  necessity  of  committing  themselves 


64  THRANE 

for  or  against  the  new  ideas.  Most  conservatives  aligned 
themselves  against  all  "neologisms/'  even  forming  at  times 
an  uneasy  united  front.  For  instance,  in  1864,  while  memories 
of  Wilson's  and  Colenso's  acquittals  were  still  fresh,  the 
scholarly  Tractarian  leader  E.  B.  Pusey  in  an  Oxford  sermon 
described  the  company  of  the  damned  in  terms  that  echo  the 
murky  early  jeremiads  of  C.  H.  Spurgeon,  the  popular  evan- 
gelist—between whose  ilk  and  Pusey's,  relations  were  ordi- 
narily on  a  Sweeney-Eliot  footing:  "fierce,  fiery  eyes  of  hate 
ever  fixed  on  thee  .  .  .  sleepless  in  their  horrible  gaze;  hear 
those  yells  of  blaspheming  concentrated  hate,  as  they  echo 
along  the  lurid  vault  of  hell."  *^  Maurice  had  held  the  essence 
of  eternal  punishment  to  consist  in  the  pain  of  loss,  which 
Pusey  stresses  in  this  sermon,  giving  only  a  phrase  to  the 
torments  of  sense.  Yet  even  these  excerpts  show  plainly  how 
little  mitigation  was  afforded  by  the  substitution  of  spiritual 
pains  for  corporeal  ones.  Despite  Lecky's  claim  that  pictures 
of  torment  had  nearly  vanished  from  theological  writing  by 
the  i86o's,*2  orthodox  representations  of  infernal  tortures  in 
various  forms  persisted  well  into  Joyce's  college  years. 

Dean  Farrar's  once-famous  sermons  on  Eternal  Hope, 
preached  late  in  1877  ^^  Westminster  Abbey,  added  little 
doctrinally  to  the  positions  taken  by  Maurice  (and,  it  may 
be  added,  Tennyson)  and  developed  by  others;  their  impor- 
tance to  us  lies  in  the  astonishingly  wide  public  interest  that 
they  and  Pusey's  reply  to  them  created.  This  holds  true  of 
Catholic  writers  as  well,  as  is  shown  by  the  number  of  articles 
on  Farrar's  subjects  that  appeared  in  Romanist  periodicals  in 
the  next  two  decades.  Such  writers  could  make  no  conces- 
sions to  Universalism,  but  at  the  same  time  many  showed 
that  they  were  not  indifferent  to  the  tensions  produced  by 
medieval  conceptions  of  hell  in  a  scientific  and  humanitarian 
age.  In  words  that  might  have  come  from  Eternal  Hope, 
an  article  of  1882  urged  that  heaven  and  hell  be  regarded 
as  not  primarily  "places  but  states"  —  of  eternal  union  with 
God  or  of  lasting  hostihty  toward  him.^^  During  Joyce's 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  65 

second  year  in  college,  an  Irish  Jesuit  published  a  book,  pos- 
sibly modeled  after  Father  Castelein's,  with  the  object  of 
proving  that  the  saved  outnumber  the  lost,  contrary  to  the 
upholders  of  ''severe  opinions."  ^*  (This  is  not  to  imply  that 
anything  like  a  wave  of  liberal  sentiment  swept  over  British 
Catholicism  but  only  to  indicate  that  concern  with  the  ques- 
tion was  not  confined  to  Protestants.)  Although  thoughtful 
Catholics  might  find  ironical  amusement  in  the  near-ap- 
proaches of  some  trusters  in  the  larger  hope  to  the  reprobated 
Romish  doctrine  of  purgatory,  they  also  recognized  that  the 
bandying-about  of  unsanctioned  teaching  by  popular  preach- 
ers and  in  books  like  Pinamonti's  had  imposed  needless  strains 
on  belief  and  furnished  their  most  militant  opponents  with 
a  whole  arsenal.  Instead  of  reaching  for  "the  extreme  limit 
of  human  imagination,"  warned  the  Catholic  World  in  1893, 
let  the  preacher  remember  that,  since  the  chief  pains  of  hell 
are  spiritual,  analogies  between  the  poena  sensus  and  earthly 
fire  are  irrelevant  at  best.  For  terror  to  have  effect,  its  reality 
must  be  believed  in,  and  such  behef  is  waning.^^  Although 
this  writer  clearly  speaks  only  for  himself,  his  feelings  were 
not  unique.  Not  long  before,  the  Catholic  convert  and  dis- 
tinguished biologist,  St.  George  Mivart,  had  avowed  that  the 
breed  of  the  "repulsive  and  widely  known  book  entitled  Hell 
Opened  to  Christians"  was  a  lion  in  the  path  of  many  Catho- 
lics, professing  and  would-be,  and  that  "hundreds  of  lectur- 
ers" were  gaining  aid  and  comfort  from  such  gratuitous  ad- 
ditions to  what  the  church  had  defined.^^  Mivart  did  nothing 
for  the  cogency  of  his  argument  by  defending  the  repulsive 
book's  methods  as  the  only  means  by  which  the  preacher 
can  convey  the  relative  superiority  of  heaven;  and  the  author- 
ities were  unsympathetic  toward  his  contention  that  Catholics 
may  believe,  like  Universalists,  in  a  gradual  amelioration  of 
the  lot  of  the  damned.  In  the  notoriety  they  achieved  among 
Catholics,  however,  Mivart's  articles  are  comparable  with  the 
Eternal  Hope  sermons  — so  much  so  that  his  unspecified 
lecturers  may  have  gained  additional  aid  and  comfort  from. 


66  THRANE 

say,  Achilles  Daunt's  rebuttal  of  his  ideas  {Tablet,  December 
17,  1892),  containing  a  detailed  exposition  of  the  pains  of 
sense  according  to  Liguori,  whose  similarities  to  Pinamonti 
we  have  already  seen. 

Mivart  calls  Hell  Opened  'widely  known/'  and  there  are 
indications  that  it  was,  if  chiefly  sub  rosa;  yet  the  bad  fame 
he  ascribes  to  it  properly  belongs  to  one  of  its  lineal  nine- 
teenth-century descendants.  Over  ten  years  before,  the  in- 
fluential Dublin  Review,  in  an  important  article  directed 
against  the  followers  of  Maurice,  had  considered  the  prob- 
lem that  was  to  vex  Mivart  and  had  anticipated  at  least  part 
of  his  verdict.  After  explaining  what  is  of  Catholic  faith 
concerning  hell,  the  Review  admitted  that  many  books  and 
preachers  have  spoken  of  physical  torments  in  language  ''far 
from  philosophically  correct"  and  added  the  important  corol- 
lary that,  since  no  Catholic  need  give  credence  to  such  details 
offered  them  "in  the  nature  of  illustration,"  the  question 
of  hellfire  sermons  is  to  be  tried  chiefly  on  pragmatic  and 
aesthetic  grounds.  And,  in  the  Review's  estimation,  "gro- 
tesque horrors  such  as  the  late  saintly  Father  Furness  [sic] 
used  to  describe  in  his  retreats,  are  bad  in  art  and  ineffective 
in  result."  ^^ 

The  "saintly  Father  Furness"  was  the  Reverend  John 
Joseph  Furniss,  C.SS.R.  (1809-65),  and  the  "grotesque  hor- 
rors" are  displayed  in  his  thirteen  penny  "Books  for  Children, 
and  Young  Persons,"  first  printed  by  James  Duffy  probably 
between  1856  and  1863  —  displayed  most  of  all  in  Book  x, 
The  Sight  of  Hell.  It  was  this  tract  of  thirty-two  pages  that 
sustained  most  of  the  assaults  of  which  Mivart  speaks.  Many 
of  these  denunciations  were  never  printed,  but,  in  those  that 
were.  The  Sight  of  Hell  stands  out  as  Exhibit  a  in  so  many 
cases  against  everlasting  punishment  that  it  is  not  exaggera- 
tion to  call  it  a  principal  cause  of  all  such  litigation. 

Born  of  a  Catholic  family.  Father  Furniss  in  1850  joined 
the  Redemptorists,  only  recently  come  to  England,  moved 
by  his  hfelong  admiration  of  St.  Alphonsus  Liguori.  During 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  67 

the  next  thirteen  years  he  took  part  in  over  a  hundred  retreats 
in  England  and  Ireland,  many  of  them  among  the  potato- 
famine  poor.  After  1855,  however,  he  concentrated  upon 
separate  children's  missions,  for  v^hich  he  evolved  an  ap- 
proach all  his  own.  ''Children,"  he  declared,  "cannot  reason, 
you  must  make  them  understand  through  their  feelings  and 
imagination."  ^^  And,  like  Pinamonti,  whose  tract  he  appears 
to  have  known  and  used,  Furniss  was  nothing  if  not  concrete: 
at  least  two  of  his  hearers  remembered  the  sermon  on  hell 
as  "very  terrible"  after  thirty-five  years. 

Hell,  exactly  four  thousand  miles  distant,  is  filled  with  tor- 
rents and  fogs  of  fire  so  hot  that  one  spark  would  dry  up 
all  the  water  of  earth;  yet  it  burns  without  giving  light, 
cloaked  in  rolling  sulphurous  clouds  of  smoke.  The  shrieks  of 
"millions  and  millions  of  tormented  creatures  mad  with  the 
fury  of  Hell"  assail  the  ears;  the  stench  of  countless  corpses, 
one  of  which,  says  St.  Bonaventure,  would  infect  all  the 
earth,  tortures  the  smell;  a  river  of  tears  shed  by  the  damned, 
who  weep  for  the  pain  and  "because  they  have  lost  the  beau- 
tiful heaven,"  flows  forever.  Each  soul  has  a  "striking  devil" 
(see  Job  2:7)  to  ulcerate  its  body  and  a  "mocking  devil"  to 
torment  it  with  thoughts  of  good  occasions  lost,  while  every 
nerve,  bone,  and  muscle  "quivers"  with  fire  that  rages  in  the 
skull,  shooting  out  of  eyes  and  ears.  Enduring  one  insect's 
sting  for  a  lifetime,  or  beholding  at  midnight  the  ghost  of 
one  long  dead,  would  only  foreshadow  the  pain  and  terror 
of  hell's  venomous  creeping  worms  and  sights  and  sounds 
dreadful  beyond  description.  And  yet  these,  in  turn,  are  noth- 
ing compared  with  the  pain  of  having  lost  the  heavenly  joys 
which  the  damned,  for  their  greater  torment,  are  allowed  to 
glimpse  at  Judgment.^^ 

Morbid  as  this  is,  we  have  met  its  like  before  (although 
not  in  rivalry  with  The  Water  Babies),  and  by  itself  it  might 
have  attracted  no  more  lasting  attention  than  Furniss'  penny- 
dreadful  word-paintings  of  phosphorescent  charnel-house  hor- 
rors or  the  drunkard's  vile  Hfe  and  death."'^  During  their 


68  THRANE 

guided  tour  of  the  inferno,  however,  the  children  behold  a 
series  of  dungeons  along  the  flaming  walls.  In  the  first  stands 
a  girl  who  thought  only  of  vanities: 

What  a  terrible  dress  she  has  on  —  her  dress  is  made 
of  fire.  On  her  head  she  wears  a  bonnet  of  fire.  It  is  pressed 
down  close  all  over  her  head;  it  .  .  .  burns  into  the  skin; 
it  scorches  the  bone  of  the  skull  and  makes  it  smoke.  The 
red  hot  fiery  heat  burns  into  the  brain  and  melts  it.  .  .  . 
Think  what  a  headache  that  girl  must  have. 

But  most  occupants  are  children: 

But  hsten!  there  is  a  sound  just  like  that  of  a  kettle 
boiling.  Is  it  really  a  kettle  which  is  boiling?  No;  then 
what  is  it?  .  .  .  The  blood  is  boihng  in  the  scalded  veins 
of  that  boy.  The  brain  is  boiling  and  bubbling  in  his  head. 
The  marrow  is  boiling  in  his  bones! 

In  the  fifth  dungeon: 

See!  it  is  a  pitiful  sight.  The  little  child  [from  another 
tract,  The  Terrible  Judgment]  is  in  this  red  hot  oven.  Hear 
how  it  screams  to  come  out.  See  how  it  turns  and  twists 
...  in  the  fire.  It  beats  its  head  against  the  roof  of  the 
oven.  It  stamps  its  little  feet  on  the  floor  of  the  oven.  You 
can  see  on  the  face  of  this  little  child  what  you  see  on 
the  faces  of  all  in  Hell  —  despair,  desperate  and  horrible! 
.  .  .  God  was  very  good  to  this  child.  Very  likely  God  saw 
that  this  child  would  .  .  .  never  repent,  and  so  it  would 
have  to  be  punished  much  more  in  Hell.  So  God  in  His 
mercy  called  it  out  of  the  world  in  its  early  childhood.^^ 

The  curious  logic  of  party  spirit  lets  the  author's  memori- 
alist assure  us  that  only  "vague  and  unsound"  Protestant  ele- 
ments took  up  arms  against  Furniss,  while  at  the  same  time, 
it  seems,  his  loving  circumstantiality  should  not  be  taken  too 
Hterally  —  even,  presumably,  by  Cathohcs.  (We  also  learn, 
however,  that  in  his  last  illness  Father  Furniss  often  repeated 
the  opinion  of  Blosius  that  anyone  dying  in  a  perfect  act  of 
resignation  will  escape  hell  and  purgatory.)  ^^  Conjectures 
aside,  these  three  passages  in  which  horrific  eschatology  is 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  69 

set  forth  in  the  tone  of  a  children's  primer,  together  with  the 
permissu  superiorum  on  its  title  page,  brought  the  tract  an 
astonishing  celebrity.  As  late  as  1895  its  Dublin  publisher 
estimated  total  sales  of  the  ''Books  for  Children"  at  over 
four  million,  adding  that  they  still  sold  'very  extensively, 
.  .  .  especially  No.  x  [The  Sight  of  Hell]  and  some  others, 
owing  to  the  attacks  made  upon  them  on  public  platforms 
and  in  the  press  by  enemies  of  the  Church."  Father  Furniss 
often  distributed  his  tracts  to  the  children  at  retreats,  where 
they  are  said  to  have  circulated  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a 
month  "with  great  effect."  ^^  The  effect  may  have  been 
greater  on  adults  than  on  children,  who  often  manage  to 
keep  a  saner  perspective  than  philanthropic  liberals  or  "the 
great  army  of  free-thinkers  .  .  .  besieging  the  venerable  su- 
perstitions of  the  past"  ^^  who  held  up  The  Sight  as  the  epit- 
ome of  iniquitous  priestcraft.  In  his  History  of  European 
Morals  (1869)  W.  E.  H.  Lecky  viewed  it  in  a  lengthy  note 
as  the  continuation  of  medieval  efforts  to  infuse  young  minds 
with  "a  spirit  of  blind  and  abject  credulity"  and  quoted 
substantially  from  three  dungeon-sights  in  order  to  alert  Eng- 
lishmen, referring  interested  readers  to  an  unnamed  "book 
on  Hell,  translated  from  the  Italian  of  Pinamonti."  ^^  Lecky's 
famous  book  by  itself  would  have  been  enough  to  make  both 
priests'  works  widely  known.  It  may  have  led  the  prominent 
Unitarian  minister,  William  Rathbone  Greg,  best  remem- 
bered for  The  Creed  of  Christendom,  to  procure  the  copy 
of  The  Sight  of  Hell  from  which  he  quoted  in  1872  to  show 
that  "material  conceptions  of  the  place  of  punishment"  had 
by  no  means  been  discarded  in  the  enhghtened  present.^^ 
In  such  extravagant  eschatology  as  the  striking  devil,  the 
dress  of  fire,  and  the  child  in  the  oven,  Greg  found,  like 
the  Dublin  Review,  an  explanation  of  the  average  Christian's 
professed  belief  in  hell  and  practical  disregard  of  it.  A  master- 
in-chancery,  one  Gerald  Fitzgibbon,  acknowledged  the  same 
year  in  Roman  Catholic  Priests  and  National  Schools  that 
Lecky's  book  led  him  to  Furniss  and  Pinamonti,  whose 


yO  THRANE 

iniquities  enabled  him  to  see  the  national  education  issue  as 
a  struggle  between  a  Church  of  England  Ormazd  and  a 
Romish  Ahriman.^^  Like  Greg  and  Fitzgibbon,  Mrs.  Annie 
Besant  emphasized  that  The  Sight  represented  ''Roman 
Catholic  authorized  teaching"  and  scornfully  examined  ex- 
cerpts from  the  passages  given  in  Greg  to  support  her  attack 
on  the  illogicality  of  eternal  punishment.^^  And  the  lasting 
effects  of  the  imagery  of  Furniss,  as  well  as  its  continuing 
diffusion,  are  suggested  by  a  report  of  nearly  twenty  years 
later  that  Mrs.  Besant's  denunciations  of  ''the  frightful  im- 
morality of  .  .  .  doctrines  about  Hell  have  been  hailed  with 
enthusiastic  plaudits  from  a  large  London  audience."  ^^ 

Neither  Mrs.  Besant  nor  Greg  mentioned  Pinamonti.  How- 
ever, Dean  Farrar  did,  both  in  the  immensely  popular  Eter- 
nal Hope  sermons,  in  their  twentieth  printing  by  1904,  and 
in  their  longer  sequel,  Mercy  and  Judgment  (1882),  written 
in  answer  to  Pusey's  What  Is  of  Faith  as  to  Everlasting  Pun- 
ishment? (1880)  and  still  of  value.  In  the  former,  as  in- 
stances of  the  "utterly  untenable  forcing  of  .  .  .  metaphoric 
language"  by  popular  hellfire  preachers,  Farrar  adduced  an 
otherwise  unidentified  pamphlet  of  extracts  "from  Pina- 
monti and  Father  Furniss  (permissu  superiorum)  containing 
passages  too  unutterably  revolting,  illustrated  by  woodcuts 
of  such  abhorrent  atrocity,  that  even  to  look  at  them  seemed 
to  involve  guilt."  In  the  latter  book  he  reverted  twice  in  the 
strongest  terms  to  the  "frightful  woodcuts  of  Pinamonti" 
and  again  warned  the  reader  that  it  is  permissu  superiorum 
("two  sad  and  starthng  words")  that  the  "coarse  ravings  of 
a  vulgar  imagination"  in  such  "dreadful"  tracts  as  The  Sight 
of  Hell  are  given  to  the  public.^^  One  final  reference  from 
the  i88o's  is  of  particular  interest,  not  as  a  critical  assessment 
of  The  Sight  ("this  farrago  of  abominable  and  blasphemous 
trash")  or  as  yet  another  anthologizing  of  the  boiling  boy 
and  the  red-hot  oven,  but  for  the  arresting  statement  that 
Hell  Opened  to  Christians  by  "the  Jesuit  Pinamonti"  was 
"translated  or  adapted"  by  Furniss  as  The  Sight  of  Hell  The 


Joyce's  Sermon  on  Hell  71 

Reverend  Sir  George  W.  Cox,  Bishop  Colenso's  biographer, 
was  partly  mistaken  here;  The  Sight,  though  probably  in- 
debted to  its  predecessor,  is  based  primarily  on  St.  Frances 
of  Rome's  vision  of  the  three  levels  of  hell,  and  Furniss  was 
not  ''also  a  member  of  the  Society  of  Jesus."  ^^  Still,  this 
faulty  information  would  have  been  of  interest  to  anyone 
whose  curiosity  had  already  been  piqued  by  The  Sight. 

No  further  witnesses  need  be  called  upon  to  prove  the 
conspicuousness  of  this  work  during  the  late  Victorian  de- 
bate over  the  scriptural  basis  for  belief  in  a  terminable  and 
remedial  punishment  after  death,  the  alleged  paucity  of  the 
saved,  and  related  issues.  What  is  equally  clear  is  that  any- 
one acquainted  —  even  indirectly  —  with  the  written  or  un- 
written literature  of  these  questions  not  only  must  have  been 
introduced  to  Furniss'  tract  but  must  also  have  garnered  an 
impression  of  it  somewhat  as  follows:  The  Sight  of  Hell  is 
the  ne  plus  ultra  among  those  crudely  materialistic  repre- 
sentations of  tortures  that  are  designed  to  terrify  into  obedi- 
ence; its  teaching  is  sanctioned  by  the  Catholic  church;  ^^ 
and  behind  it  —  perhaps  even  as  its  source  —  is  a  sinister 
work  by  an  Italian  Jesuit  which,  as  we  have  seen,  enjoyed 
an  unsavory  repute  in  Joyce's  schooldays.  From  the  refer- 
ences in  Ulysses,  it  is  plain  that  Joyce  had  heard  of  the 
eternal-punishment  issues  at  least  before  the  date  of  the 
Wandering  Rocks;  and,  since  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  Father 
Castelein's  Le  Rigorisme  cropping  up  in  Zurich  conversations 
some  twenty  years  after  the  book's  publication,  it  is  reasona- 
ble to  infer  that  Joyce's  knowledge  of  the  question  dates 
from  a  much  earlier  time  (probably  from  his  college  years) 
and  that  his  knowledge  was  more  than  superficial.  And,  if  it 
was,  then  Father  Furniss'  Sight  of  Hell  almost  certainly 
formed  part  of  it.  True,  Joyce  might  have  been  introduced 
to  famous  painters  of  hellfire  by  means  of  the  sermons  that 
were  plentiful  during  his  youth:  **Just  imagine  a  Mission," 
wrote  a  Catholic  layman  in  sympathy  with  Mivart,  ''without 
a  good  orthodox  sermon  on  Hell!"  ^^  Yet  for  all  their  "ma- 


72  THRANE 

terial  fire  of  the  most  terrible  description"  that,  according 
to  this  writer,  formed  the  ordinary  teaching  of  hell  among 
Catholics,  such  sermons  would  hardly  have  dwelt  upon  the 
failure  of  modern  critics  to  find  everlasting  damnation  of  the 
sinful  or  the  unbaptized  taught  in  the  Bible  —  which,  after 
all,  was  the  root  principle  of  the  entire  liberal  movement  un- 
der discussion  here  and  which  Haines  seems  to  allude  to  in 
Ulysses.  It  is  interesting,  however,  that  Father  J.  A.  Cullen, 
S.J.,  spiritual  father  at  Belvedere  and  the  probable  original 
of  Father  Arnall,®*  was  noted  for  a  "lurid"  style  of  sermon. 
I  know  of  no  evidence  that  he  ever  employed  either  of  the 
two  tracts  in  describing  the  punishment  of  sin,  but  it  is  told 
that  an  1849  mission  conducted  by  two  Jesuits  who  ''dealt 
generously  in  death  and  Hell-fire"  had  an  immense  effect 
on  him  and  that  Cullen  himself  remembered  a  presumably 
similar  Redemptorist  mission  five  years  later  as  the  decisive 
event  of  his  youth.^^  It  would  have  been  theatrically  ap- 
propriate had  Father  Furniss  taken  part  in  this  second  mis- 
sion, as  he  might  have;  but  he  did  not.  Most  of  his  books, 
however,  received  their  imprimatur  the  following  year,  and 
their  contents  may  have  been  known  to  Furniss'  associates 
who  preached  there.  In  any  event,  although  actual  sermons 
heard  by  Joyce  undoubtedly  contributed  much  to  the  retreat 
episode,  this  does  not  rule  out  the  likelihood  of  Joyce's  first- 
hand knowledge  of  writers  on  the  larger  hope.  The  indigna- 
tion displayed  in  Stephen  Hero  over  ''obscene,  stinking  hells" 
strongly  resembles  the  tone  of  the  more  outspoken  denuncia- 
tions of  Furniss  that  have  been  reviewed.  And  this  feeling  is 
surely  the  author's  own,  not  that  of  a  persona;  its  absence 
from  the  Portrait  is  a  measure  of  the  increased  distance  be- 
tween the  later  work's  protagonist  and  his  creator  and  not 
a  sign  that  the  earlier  attitude  was  a  Heroic  pose  or  that  the 
subject  had  faded  from  Joyce's  mind.^^ 

Joyce  could  have  made  little  use  of  The  Sight;  its  episodic 
lack  of  coherence  and  childish  tone  are  equally  unsuited  to 
Joyce's  preacher  and  to  his  hearers.  Its  chief  importance  (if. 


Joyce*s  Sermon  on  Hell  73 

as  I  think,  he  knew  of  it)  lay  in  calhng  his  attention  to  Pina- 
monti's  rigorous  and  vigorous  analyses,  whose  efEciency, 
force,  and  scientific  precision  have  been  noted  by  Thomas 
Merton.^^  However,  the  problem  of  just  how  Hell  Opened 
to  Christians  came  into  Joyce's  hands  is  ultimately  of  the 
same  order  as  the  question  of  whether  the  retreat  sermon  of 
the  Portrait  corresponds  to  a  particular  event  in  the  author's 
life.  Even  if  the  latter  question  could  be  answered  affirma- 
tively, this  would  not  alter  the  fact  that  the  correspondence 
between  Joyce's  and  Dedalus'  lives  is  primarily  an  inward 
one.  Joyce  in  the  Portrait  seeks  a  local  habitation  (seldom  a 
name)  for  stages  in  the  self-realization  of  a  personality  — 
one  that  he  had  largely  left  behind  him  by  the  time  of  writ- 
ing. He  is  concerned  with  psychological  and  metaphorical 
appositeness  of  event  to  thought  and  feeling  rather  than 
with  literal  accuracy  in  recording  circumstances.  Searching 
as  he  was  for  external  correlatives  of  inward  experience,  he 
would  and  must  have  echoed  George  Moore's  ''J^  prends 
mon  bien  ou  je  le  trouve"  —  from  contemporary  theological 
Hterature,  from  obscure  Dublin  bookstalls,  even  from  hear- 
say. It  is  his  "inspired  cribbing,"  ^^  his  gift  for  transforming 
such  unwieldy  material  as  Hell  Opened  to  Christians  into 
one  of  the  most  dramatic  and  effective  portions  of  the  novel, 
that  makes  examination  of  Joyce's  sources  worthwhile. 

NOTES 

1.  Editions  of  Joyce's  works  cited  in  the  text  are:  A  Portrait^ 
in  The  Portable  James  Joyce,  ed.  Harry  Levin  (New  York: 
Viking,  1947);  Stephen  Hero,  ed.  Theodore  Spencer  (New 
York:  New  Directions,  1944);  and  Ulysses  (New  York:  Modern 
Library,  1934).  Permission  of  the  publishers  to  quote  from  these 
editions  is  gratefully  acknowledged. 

2.  James  T.  Farrell,  The  League  of  Frightened  Philistines 
(New  York,  [1945]),  pp.  51-52;  Marvin  Magalaner  (with 
R.  M.  Kain),  Joyce:  The  Man,  the  Work,  the  Reputation  (New 
York,  1956),  pp.  25,  114;  W.  Y.  Tindall,  James  Joyce  (New 


74  THRANE 

York  and  London,  1950),  p.  9;  Hugh  Kenner,  Dublin  s  Joyce 
(London,  1955),  pp.  127,  128;  W.  T.  Noon,  S.J.,  "J^^^^s  Joyce 
and  Catholicism,"  James  Joyce  Review,  i  (December,  1957), 
13.  With  this  last  cf.  Catholic  World,  cv  (June,  1917),  395-97. 

3.  Joyce  among  the  Jesuits  (New  York,  1958),  pp.  36-37, 
128-30,  138,  141-42. 

4.  Silent  Years  (New  York,  1953),  pp.  18-19;  cf.  ibid.,  p. 
152. 

5.  Percy  Dearmer,  The  Legend  of  Hell  (London,  1929),  pp. 
46-47. 

6.  Text  in  Opere  del  padre  Gio:  Pietro  Pinamonti  della 
Compagnia  di  Gesii,  con  un  breve  Ragguaglio  della  sua  vita. 
.  .  .   (Parma,  1706),  pp.  295-311. 

7.  Frederic  W.  Farrar,  Eternal  Hope  (New  York,  1880),  p. 
liii;  cf.  Dearmer,  Legend  of  Hell,  p.  11. 

8.  As  Father  Arnall  explains,  mortal  sin  has  two  aspects.  Since 
the  malice  of  the  first  consists  in  seeking  forbidden  satisfaction 
through  the  senses,  it  is  punished  through  the  senses.  The  pain 
of  sense,  strictly  speaking,  is  fire;  the  other  torments  in  Pina- 
monti and  writers  in  this  tradition  are  called  ''accidental."  The 
far  greater  malice  of  sin's  second  aspect  lies  in  the  soul's  aban- 
doning of  God,  and  this  is  punished  with  the  far  greater  torment 
of  the  poena  damni  or  eternal  separation  from  God.  This  is  the 
"core"  of  eternal  punishment,  and,  although  the  fire  is  real,  not 
metaphorical,  no  one  can  specify  the  exact  nature  of  its  action, 
as  St.  Augustine  declared  {City  of  God  xx  16).  — Joseph 
Hontheim  in  Catholic  Encyclopedia  (1910),  s.v.  ''Hell." 

9.  The  corresponding  sections  are  as  follows.  Pinamonti, 
Consideration  i:  Portrait,  pp.  373-74,  par.  1;  11 :  p.  374,  par. 
2  — p.  376,  par.  1;  III:  p.  376,  par.  2  — p.  377,  par.  2  passim; 
IV:  p.  382,  par.  2  — p.  383,  par.  1;  v:  p.  383,  par.  2  —  p.  385, 
par.  2;  vi:  p.  385,  par.  3  —  p.  386;  vii:  pp.  387-90  passim. 

10.  Arnall's  reference  to  Ecclesiastes  7:40  at  the  opening  of 
the  retreat  {Portrait,  p.  360)  should  be,  of  course,  to  Ecclesiasti- 
cus;  and  it  might  be  inferred,  assuming  Joyce  took  these  biblical 
references  from  Hell  Opened,  that  here  on  page  381  he  intended 
once  more  to  satirize  his  preacher's  learning,  this  time  by  chang- 
ing the  verse  number  given  in  Pinamonti.  If  so,  he  inadvertently 
achieved  just  the  opposite  effect.  Both  errors  may  have  been 
mere  slips  of  the  pen.  Yet  in  the  first,  oddly,  Arnall's  "Remem- 


Joyce*s  Sermon  on  Hell  75 

ber  only  thy  last  things"  is  almost  the  same  as  the  translation 
of  the  verse  in  Hell  Opened  and  quite  different  from  "In  all 
thy  works  remember  thy  last  end,  and  thou  shalt  never  sin"  in 
the  Douay  Version,  even  though  Joyce  must  have  had  to  look 
up  Pinamonti's  incomplete  reference  (p.  4)  to  "Eccl.  vii"  in 
order  to  find  the  verse.  And,  if  he  did  so,  then  both  the  "free" 
translation  and  the  blunder  of  the  first  were  probably  deliberate 
on  Joyce's  part. 

11.  Sullivan,  Joyce  among  the  Jesuits,  p.  141. 

12.  Preparation  for  Death,  trans.  Anonymous  (Louisville, 
n.d.),  pp.  224-27,  229,  237.  Cf.  Portrait,  pp.  373-75,  382,  385. 

13.  Clement  F.  Rogers,  The  Fear  of  Hell  as  an  Instrument 
of  Conversion  (London,  1939),  esp.  chaps,  iv  and  v;  E.  B.  Pusey, 
What  Is  of  Faith  as  to  Everlasting  Punishment?  (3d  ed.;  Ox- 
ford and  London,  1881),  pp.  172  ff. 

14.  G.  G.  Coulton,  Five  Centuries  of  Religion,  i  (Cambridge, 
1923),  esp.  29,  61,  70-73,  89,  and  Appendix  11. 

15.  Tertullian  Apologeticus  xivii;  St.  Gregory  Dialogues  xlii; 
Summa  TheoL,  Part  in,  Suppl.,  Q97,  arts,  iv  and  vii. 

16.  Tertullian,  "Of  Public  Shows"  xxx  (cf.  Apologeticus 
xlviii);  St.  Gregory  Dialogues  xxxi  (cf.  xxix-xxx,  xxxvi,  and 
Moralia  xv);  Bede  Ecclesiastical  History  xii;  Edwards,  Works 
(New  York,  1881),  iv,  260-61.  See  also  Augustine  City  of  God 
xxi.  2-4;  Summa  TheoL,  Part  iii,  Suppl.,  Q97,  arts,  i,  v,  and  vi; 
or  even  Robert  Pollok,  The  Course  of  Time  (Edinburgh,  1827), 
Book  I,  11.  250-69. 

17.  St.  Alphonsus  Liguori,  Reflections  on  Spiritual  Subjects, 
trans.  Anonymous  (Boston,  1851),  p.  114. 

18.  Lessius,  The  Names  of  God  .  .  .  [selections  from  De 
perfectionibus],  trans.  T.  J.  Campbell  (New  York,  1912),  pp. 
221-22;  Summa  TheoL,  Part  iii,  Suppl.,  Q98,  arts,  i,  iv,  and  v. 

19.  Lib.  xiii,  cap.  xxiv,  xxix  (text  of  Opuscula  [Paris,  1881], 
1,463,  509). 

20.  Taylor,  Works  (London,  1853),  11,  390-93.  Robert 
Gathorne-Hardy  discusses  this  work's  origins  in  The  Golden 
Grove,  ed.  L.  P.  Smith  (Oxford,  1930),  p.  328. 

21.  Obras  escogidas,  ed.  D.  E.  Zepeda-Henriquez  (Madrid, 
1957),  II,  210,  214-15.  La  Diferencia  was  translated  into  Latin, 
Italian,  and  English. 

22.  Think  Well  On't:  or.  Reflections  on  the  Great  Truths 


76  THRANE 

of  the  Christian  Religion   (Derby,   1843),  pp.  45-46.    (First 
published  in  1728.) 

23.  Eternal  Hope,  p.  67. 

24.  Four  [Considerations]  on  Eternity  [with  works  by  Pina- 
monti  and  La  Nuza],  trans.  Anonymous  (London,  1877),  p.  94. 
Manni's  La  Prigione  eterna  delV  inferno  (1669),  which  I  have 
not  seen,  is  said  to  be  similar  to  Hell  Opened  to  Christians 
(St.  George  Mivart,  Nineteenth  Century,  xxxii  [December, 
1892],  902). 

25.  Preparation  for  Death,  p.  238;  Obras  escogidas,  11,  24. 

26.  Considerations  of  Drexelius  upon  Eternity,  trans.  Ralph 
Winterton   (London,   1689),  p.  92.  Cf.  Nieremberg,  loc.  cit. 

27.  Little  Book  of  Eternal  Wisdom,  trans.  Anonymous  (Lon- 
don, [1910]),  p.  68.  Coulton,  Wright,  Lecky,  and  others  deal 
thoroughly  with  medieval  ideas  of  future  punishment;  for  recent 
times  the  best  chart  is  Ezra  Abbot's  valuable  bibliography 
appended  to  W.  R.  Alger's  Critical  History  of  the  Doctrine  of 
a  Future  Life  (Philadelphia,  1864)  —historically  important,  but 
often  more  exhortative  than  critical.  Dearmer's  important  Legend 
of  Hell  is  primarily  a  study  of  the  scriptural  basis  of  the  belief. 

28.  *']sLmes  Joyce  and  Catholicism,"  p.  13. 

29.  Summa  of  the  Christian  Life,  trans,  and  ed.  Jordan 
Aumaun  (St.  Louis  and  London,  1957),  m,  347,  349. 

30.  E.g.,  the  accounts  of  death  and  judgment  in  Pinamonti, 
Opere,  pp.  151-52,  156-58,  262-63;  Liguori,  Preparation  for 
Death,  pp.  215-22;  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  Philothea  or  an  Intro- 
duction to  the  Devout  Life  (New  York  and  London,  [1923]), 
pp.  30,  32-33. 

31.  Summa  TheoL,  Part  iii,  Suppl.,  Q94,  art.  iii. 

32.  Stanislaus  Joyce,  My  Brother's  Keeper,  ed.  Richard  Ell- 
mann  (New  York,  1958),  pp.  80-82.  See  also  Stephen  Hero, 
p.  57,  and  Sullivan,  Joyce  among  the  Jesuits,  pp.  36-37. 

33.  Coulton,  Five  Centuries,  i,  445-49;  Dearmer,  Legend  of 
Hell,  pp.  59-61.  Coulton's  confusion  of  Castelein's  book  with 
F.  X.  Godts's  {op.  cit.,  11,  665)  is  repeated  by  Dearmer  {op.  cit., 
p.  59  n.). 

34.  "He  throve  on  the  smell  /  Of  a  horrible  hell  /  That  a 
Hottentot  wouldn't  believe  in"  {Letters,  ed.  Stuart  Gilbert 
[New  York,  1957],  p.  102). 

35.  Writing  in  a  friendly  spirit,  Lecky  in  1865  described  the 


Joyce*s  Sermon  on  Hell  77 

main  characteristic  of  modern  Christianity  as  a  "boundless  phi- 
lanthropy/' even  to  the  point  of  "effeminate  sentimentahty" 
(History  of  the  Rise  and  Influence  of  the  Spirit  of  Rationalism 
in  Europe  [rev.  ed.;  New  York  and  London,  1925],  i,  347-48). 
Cf.  Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon,  Sermons  (New  York,  1893-94), 
II,  264  (ca.  1857). 

36.  As  in  E.  H.  Plumptre,  The  Spirits  in  Prison  .  .  .  (New 
York,  1885),  pp.  21-23. 

37.  Theological  Essays  (2d  ed.;  New  York,  1854),  p.  341. 

38.  G.  W.  Cox,  Life  of  John  William  Colenso  (London, 
1888),  I,  47-48,  149. 

39.  Ten  Weeks  in  Natal  (Cambridge,  1855),  pp.  252-53;  St. 
PauVs  Epistle  to  the  Romans  .  .  .  (New  York,  1863),  pp. 
164-85,  198. 

40.  E.g.,  Christian  Observer,  lxii  (1862),  940. 

41.  Everlasting  Punishment  (Oxford  and  London,  1864),  p. 
15.  Cf.  Spurgeon,  Sermons,  1,  313;  11,  275-76. 

42.  Lecky,  Rationalism,  i,  338. 

43.  [Richard  }.(?)  Clarke],  "Eternal  Punishment  and  Eternal 
Love,"  The  Month,  xliv  (January,  1882),  15. 

44.  Nicholas  Walsh,  S.J.,  The  Comparative  Number  of  the 
Saved  and  the  Lost  (Dublin,  1899),  p.  106. 

45.  Augustine  F.  Hewitt,  "Ignis  aeternus,"  Catholic  World, 
Lvii  (1893),  19,  24. 

46.  "Happiness  in  Hell,"  Nineteenth  Century,  xxxii  (De- 
cember, 1892),  902,  916-18;  "Last  Words  on  the  Happiness 
in  Hell:  A  Rejoinder,"  ibid.,  xxxiii  (April,  1893),  646-48. 
Mivart's  dissatisfactions  led  finally  to  his  break  with  ecclesiastical 
authority  and  subsequent  excommunication. 

47.  "Everlasting  Punishment,"  Dublin  Review,  v  (3d  ser., 
1881),  137-38. 

48.  T[homas]  Livius,  C.SS.R.,  Father  Furniss  and  His  Work 
for  Children  (London,  etc.,  1896),  p.  58. 

49.  The  Sight  of  Hell  (Dublin  and  London,  n.d.),  pp.  3-4, 
6-9,  13-17. 

50.  God  and  His  Creatures  (the  collected  edition  of  the 
Books  [London,  1864]),  pp.  162-64,  323-27. 

51.  Sight  of  Hell,  pp.  17-18,  20-21.  Furniss  also  wrote  God 
Loves  Little  Children. 

52.  Livius,  Father  Furniss,  pp.  114,  139,  168. 


yS  THRANE 

53.  Ibid.,  pp.  101,  116,  171. 

54.  Annie  Besant,  On  Eternal  Torture  (London,  [1874]), 
p.  3. 

55.  History  of  European  Morals  from  Augustus  to  Charle- 
magne (5th  ed.;  London,  1882),  11,  223-24,  n.  2.  Lecky  appears 
to  have  modified  his  opinion  of  1865.  See  above,  n.  42. 

56.  Enigmas  of  Life  (Boston,  1875),  pp.  267-69  n. 

57.  Fitzgibbon's  overstatements  and  inaccuracies  drew  a 
singularly  inept  reply  from  T.  E.  Bridgett,  C.SS.R.,  reprinted 
in  his  Blunders  and  Forgeries  (London,  1890),  pp.  114-56. 

58.  On  Eternal  Torture,  pp.  7-8. 

59.  Mivart,  ''Last  Words  on  the  Happiness  in  Hell,"  p.  646. 

60.  Eternal  Hope,  p.  liii;  Mercy  and  Judgment  (2d  ed.;  Lon- 
don, 1882),  pp.  106-7,  ^3^- 

61.  Life  of  John  William  Colenso,  i,  158-59. 

62.  Cf.  Stephen  Hero,  p.  232:  "they  believe  in  the  infallibility 
of  the  Pope  and  in  all  his  obscene,  stinking  hells." 

63.  H.  McCann,  in  The  Tablet,  lxxxi  (February  18,  1893), 
258. 

64.  Sullivan,  Joyce  among  the  Jesuits,  128-29. 

65.  Lambert  McKenna,  S.}.,  Life  and  Work  of  Rev.  James 
Aloysius  Cullen  (London,  1924),  pp.  13-14,  34,  97. 

66.  One  final  point  suggests  that  Joyce  knew  The  Sight  of 
Hell.  We  have  seen  that  the  bird  carrying  away  the  sandhill  of 
eternity  a  grain  at  a  time  is  a  stock  image.  Father  Arnall  makes 
an  extended  use  of  it;  Pinamonti,  however,  ignores  it.  But  the 
bird  appears  in  one  of  Furniss'  hyperboles  as  part  of  a  strikingly 
ill-reasoned  illustration:  ''Think  of  a  great  solid  iron  ball,  larger 
than  the  Heavens  and  the  earth.  A  bird  comes  once  in  a  hun- 
dred millions  of  years  and  just  touches  the  great  iron  ball  with 
a  feather  of  its  wing.  Think  that  you  have  to  burn  in  a  fire  till 
the  bird  has  worn  the  great  iron  ball  away  with  its  feather.  Is 
this  Eternity?  No"  (p.  24). 

67.  The  Seven  Storey  Mountain  (New  York,  1948),  p.  211. 

68.  Richard  Ellmann,  Introduction  to  My  Brother's  Keeper 
by  Stanislaus  Joyce,  p.  xv. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom 


JOSEPH     PRESCOTT 


An  abbreviated  version  of  this  paper  was  read  at  the  Fourth  Triennial 
Conference  of  the  International  Association  oi  Vniveisity  Pioiessois 
of  English,  at  the  University  of  Lausanne,  on  August  28,  1959.  The 
writing  of  the  paper  was  made  possible,  in  part,  by  a  sabbatical  leave  of 
absence  from  Wayne  State  University  and  a  grant-in-aid  from  the  Mod- 
ern Language  Association  of  America.  A  fevi^  sentences,  with  some  re- 
vision, are  reprinted  by  permission  of  the  publishers  from  my  "James 
Joyce's  Ulysses  as  a  Work  in  Progress"  in  Summaries  of  Theses  Ac- 
cepted in  Partial  Fulfilment  of  the  Requirements  for  the  Degree  of 
Doctor  of  Philosophy  [in  Harvard  University],  1943-1945,  Cambridge, 
Mass.:  Harvard  University  Press,  Copyright,  1947,  by  The  President 
and  Fellows  of  Harvard  College.  Joyce's  revisions  are  quoted  by  per- 
mission of  the  James  Joyce  Estate. 


A  S  the  paper  which  follows  represents  a  chapter  of  a  longer 
study,  I  should  like  to  make  a  few  introductory  and,  later,  a 
few  concluding  observations  on  the  place  of  this  chapter 
within  the  study  as  a  whole. 

The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to  analyze  the  technique  of 
Ulysses  as  it  is  revealed  by  the  growth  of  the  text  through 

JOSEPH  PRESCOTT  is  PvofessoT  of  English  at  Wayne  State  Uni- 
versity. In  addition  to  contributing  articles  to  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  he  has  served  as  editor  of  Configuration  critique  de 
James  Joyce,  2  volumes  {La  Revue  des  lettres  modemes,  Autumn, 
1959  and  Winter,  1959-60).  A  volume  of  his  writings  on  Joyce 
is  to  be  published  by  Southern  Illinois  University  Press. 

79 


8o  PRESCOTT 

the  innumerable,  extensive,  and  significant  changes  which 
the  author  made  in  various  stages  in  the  writing  of  the  book. 
As  the  materials  of  Ulysses  were  going  through  the  creative 
process  in  now  widely  scattered  manuscripts,  typescripts, 
proof  sheets,  and  other  preliminary  drafts,  the  revisions 
added  up  to  an  enormous  body  of  evidence  which  yields 
much  new  light  on  Joyce's  intentions  and  methods. 

The  present  study  takes  account  of  such  things  as  the 
manuscript  notebooks  and  sheets  in  the  University  of  Buffalo 
Library  and  the  Cornell  University  Library,  the  manuscript 
of  Ulysses  in  the  Rosenbach  Foundation,  a  certain  number 
of  scattered  typescript  sheets,  the  partial  and  untrustworthy 
serial  version  in  the  Little  Review,  a  large  collection  of  proof 
sheets  in  the  Harvard  University  Library,  several  proof  sheets 
in  the  Yale  University  Library,  and  other  documents  in 
private  hands.  The  fact  that  the  proofs  in  the  Harvard 
Library  alone  offer  from  one  to  eight  galleys  for  any  given 
segment  of  Ulysses  should  indicate  how  the  materials  afford 
a  fascinating  insight  into  Joyce's  methods  as  well  as  a  basis 
for  observations  on  the  entire  history  of  the  evolution  of 
the  novel. 

This  paper  is  the  last  of  four  chapters  on  characterization, 
the  first  dealing  with  Stephen  Dedalus,  the  second  with  Leo- 
pold Bloom,*  and  the  third  with  minor  characters. 

So  far  as  characterization  generally  is  concerned,  Joyce's 
recorded  remarks  encourage  one  to  believe  that  he  started 
with  large  and  fluid  concepts  which  he  then  proceeded  to 
particularize  by  concrete,  detailed  illustration.  The  reader's 


*  The  first  appeared  as  "The  Characterization  oi  Stephen  Dedalus  in 
Ulysses"  in  Letterature  Moderne,  ix  (March-April,  1959),  i^$-6y,  a 
summary  of  the  second  as  "The  Characterization  of  Leopold  Bhom"  in 
Literature  and  Psychology,  ix  (Winter,  1959),  3-4.  For  one  of  two 
chapters  on  style,  see  "Stylistic  Realism  in  Joyce's  Ulysses"  in  A  James 
Joyce  Miscellany:  Second  Series,  ed.  Marvin  MagaJaner  {Caihondale 
[III],  1959),  PP-  iS~^^>  ^^^  ^  summary  oi  the  other,  see  "The  Language 
of  James  Joyce's  Ulysses"  in  Langue  et  Litt6rature:  Actes  du  VHP 
Congr^s  de  la  Federation  Internationale  des  Langues  et  Litteratures 
Modernes  [Paris,  1961),  pp.  ^o6-y. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  81 

experience,  however,  is  inductive,  and  only  after  building  up 
a  character  bit  by  bit  can  he  perceive  the  pattern  of  the 
whole.  More  importantly,  working  from  the  preliminary 
versions,  he  begins  at  a  stage  that  is  inductive  for  both  author 
and  reader,  the  author  introducing  details,  the  reader  follow- 
ing the  author,  both  building  toward  the  whole,  the  first 
from  preconceived  outlines,  the  second  toward  outlines  that 
are  yet  to  be  apprehended.  Painstakingly,  indefatigably,  Joyce 
linked  together  the  innumerable  atoms  that  finally  emerge  as 
Stephen  Dedalus,  Leopold  Bloom,  the  minor  characters, 
and  Molly  Bloom.  With  the  benefit  of  hindsight  the  reader 
of  the  published  text  may  fluently  formulate  these  people  as 
products  of  this,  that,  and  other  forces;  the  process  of  crea- 
tion, however,  is  recaptured  only  when  he  retraces  the  steps 
which  Joyce  took  in  shaping  his  characters. 


II 


Like  her  husband,  Mrs.  Bloom  is  a  new  creation  in 
Ulysses;  and  again,  in  consequence,  the  various  stages  in  the 
writing  swarm  with  changes. 

About  the  genesis  of  Molly,  as  about  that  of  Bloom,  Her- 
bert Gorman  gives  us  authoritative  information : 

There  were  two  models  for  this  great  character  of  Molly 
Bloom,  one  a  Dubliner  and  the  other  an  Italian.  The  war- 
time correspondence  of  the  Italian  passed  through  Joyce's 
hands  during  the  period  he  lived  in  Zurich.  There  was 
nothing  political  in  these  letters,  whose  grammar  Joyce 
corrected,  but  the  Austrian  censors  must  have  had  more 
than  one  sizzling  moment  while  reading  them.  That,  how- 
ever, did  not  perturb  the  full-blooded  Italian  lady.^ 

We  shall  find  that  this  account,  in  spite  of  its  brevity,  ex- 
plains much  of  the  character  for  whom  the  Italian  woman 
sat. 


82  PRESCOTT 

Again  as  in  the  case  of  her  husband,  Mrs.  Bloom  is  given 
no  formal  descriptive  introduction.  We  grow  acquainted 
with  her  physical  appearance  by  the  same  process  of  accre- 
tion which  Joyce  uses  for  all  his  other  characters.  In  view  of 
Molly's  effect  upon  men,  it  is  appropriate  that  we  gain  most 
of  our  information  concerning  her  physique  from  the  impres- 
sions of  the  men  who  know  her,  chief  among  whom,  of 
course,  is  her  husband.  We  learn  gradually  —  to  cite  only  a 
few  passages  from  among  a  great  many  —  that  she  has  ''large 
soft  bubs  sloping  within  her  nightdress  like  a  shegoat's  ud- 
der" and  ''full  lips",^  large  young  Moorish  eyes  inherited 
with  her  figure  from  her  Spanish  mother,^  a  "plump  .  .  . 
generous  arm,"  ^  thick  wavy  black  hair,^  a  plump  body,^ 
ample  buttocks,^  a  dark  complexion.^ 

The  nearest  thing  to  a  formal  description  of  Molly  comes 
toward  the  end  of  the  day  and  concerns  not  Molly  herself 
but  an  approximately  eight-year-old  photograph  of  her, 

showing  a  large  sized  lady,  with  her  fleshy  charms  on  evi- 
dence in  an  open  fashion,  as  she  was  in  the  full  bloom  of 
womanhood,  in  evening  dress  cut  ostentatiously  low  for 
the  occasion  to  give  a  liberal  display  of  bosom,  with  more 
than  vision  of  breasts,  her  full  lips  parted,  and  some  per- 
fect teeth  .  .  .  eyes,  dark,  large,  .  .  .^ 

For  the  most  part,  it  will  be  noted,  the  likeness  still  holds. 

In  revising,  Joyce  adds  to  our  awareness  of  several  points 
in  Molly's  appearance.  Thus,  Bloom,  ordering  white  wax  for 
her,  thinks:  "Brings  out  the  darkness  of  her  eyes.  Looking  at 
me,  the  sheet  up  to  her  eyes  smelling  herself,  when  I  was 
fixing  the  hnks  in  my  cuffs."  After  the  second  "eyes"  Joyce 
adds  ",  Spanish,".io 

At  twilight  Bloom  thinks  back  upon  Cissy  Caffrey:  "And 
the  dark  one  with  the  mop  head  and  the  nigger  mouth.  I 
knew  she  could  whistle.  Mouth  made  for  that."  After  the 
last  phrase  Joyce  adds:  ".  Like  Molly."  ^^  Considering  what 
we  know  about  Molly's  appearance,  it  would  have  been  little 
wonder  had  Cissy's  complexion  or  hair,  as  well  as  her  mouth. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  83 

inspired  the  comparison;  the  three  together  made  it  inevita- 
ble. 
Molly  herself  remembers 

the  day  I  was  in  fits  of  laughing  with  the  giggles  I  couldn't 
stop  about  all  my  hairpins  falling  one  after  another  youre 
always  in  great  humour  she  [Josie  Powell]  said  yes  because 
it  grigged  her  because  she  knew  what  it  meant 

Following  "another"  Joyce  inserts  ''with  the  mass  of  hair  I 
had".i2 

Looking  further  back  to  her  Gibraltar  days,  Molly  recalls: 
''I  had  everything  all  to  myself  then  a  girl  Hester  we  used 
to  compare  our  hair  she  showed  me  how  to  settle  it  at  the 
back  when  I  put  it  up".  After  ''hair"  Joyce  adds  "mine  was 
thicker  than  hers".^^ 

From  Molly's  physique  it  is  no  far  cry  to  the  most  salient 
aspect  of  her  character  —  her  sexuality.  She  is,  as  Joyce  wrote, 
"  'sane  full  amoral  fertilisable  untrustworthy  engaging  lim- 
ited prudent  indifferent  Weib.  "Ich  bin  das  Fleisch  das  stets 
bejaht!" ' "  ^*  Other  qualities  only  modify  this  central  fact 
of  her  existence. 

Towards  all  things,  sex  included,  Molly  maintains  a  frank 
attitude.  Again  and  again  she  measures  things  by  their 
naturalness.  The  imperturbability  of  the  full-blooded  Italian 
woman  was  not  lost  in  Joyce's  character-transfusion. 

In  the  process  of  revision,  Molly's  emphasis  on  naturalness 
is  augmented.  Of  her  husband  she  thinks:  "but  of  course  hes 
not  natural".  After  "natural"  Joyce  adds  "like  the  rest  of  the 
world".i5 

Molly  recalls  Leopold's  courtship:  "sending  me  that  long 
strool  of  a  song  out  of  the  Huguenots  to  sing  in  French  to 
be  more  classy  O  beau  pays  de  la  Touraine  that  I  never  even 
sang  once".  After  "once"  Joyce  adds  "explaining  and  rigma- 
roling  about  religion  and  persecution  he  wont  let  you  enjoy 
anything  naturally".^^ 

Almost   immediately   afterward,    Molly   observes:    "they 


84  PRESCOTT 

ought  to  make  chambers  a  bit  bigger  so  that  a  woman  could 
sit  on  it  properly".  For  ''bit  bigger"  Joyce  substitutes  ''natural 
size".^^ 

Later  in  the  same  galley  as  that  containing  the  last  addi- 
tion, Molly  thinks  about  triangles:  "her  husband  found  it 
out  well  and  if  he  did  can  he  undo  it".  For  "well"  Joyce 
substitutes  "what  they  did  together  well  naturally".^^ 

The  sense  of  guilt  so  commonly  associated  with  sex  is  for- 
eign to  Molly  even  beyond  the  borders  of  social  convention. 
She  recalls  some  of  Bloom's  talk:  "who  is  in  your  mind  now 
tell  me  who  are  you  thinking  of  who  is  it  tell  me  his  name 
who  tell  me  who  the  German  emperor  is  it  yes  imagine  Im 
him  think  of  him  can  you  feel".  After  "feel"  Joyce  adds 
"him  trying  to  make  a  whore  of  me  what  he  never  will".^^ 

Molly's  straightforward  acceptance  of  the  body  moves  her 
to  disgust  with  all  mincing  and  concealment.  She  considers 
the  books  Leopold  brings  her:  "the  works  of  Master  Francois 
somebody  supposed  to  be  a  priest  about  a  child  born  out  of 
her  ear  because  her  bumgut  fell  out  a  nice  word  for  any  priest 
to  write".  After  "write"  Joyce  adds  "and  her  a  —  e  as  if  any 
fool  wouldnt  know  what  that  meant  I  hate  that  pretending 
of  all  things".^^ 

In  the  same  vein  Molly  thinks  of  her  adultery:  "O  much 
about  it  if  thats  all  the  harm  ever  we  did  in  this  vale  of  tears 
God  knows  its  not  much".  After  "not  much"  Joyce  inserts 
"doesn't  everybody  only  they  hide  it".^^ 

Yet,  as  a  member  of  society  Molly  is  driven  to  deceit-by- 
silence.  She  considers  what  she  will  do  in  the  morning:  "111 
see  if  he  has  that  French  letter  still  in  his  pocketbook  I  sup- 
pose he  thinks  I  dont  know".  After  "know"  Joyce  inserts 
"deceitful  men  they  havent  pocket  enough  for  their  lies  then 
why  should  we  tell  them  if  its  the  truth  they  dont  believe 
you".22 

Molly's  elemental  attitude  toward  sex  is  again  introduced 
in  her  thoughts  on  Stephen:  "what  is  he  [Bloom]  driving  at 
now".  After  "now"  Joyce  adds  "showing  him  my  photo  its 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  85 

not  good  of  me  still  I  look  young  in  it  I  wonder  he  didnt 
make  him  a  present  of  it  altogether  and  me  too  after  all  why 
not".23 

That  Molly  may  be  completely  natural,  Joyce  gives  am- 
bivalence to  her  emotion  toward  men:  her  sexual  avidity  is 
set  off  by  resentment  and  hostility. 

In  connection  with  childbirth  she  thinks: 

and  Mina  Purefoys  husband  give  us  a  swing  out  of  your 
whiskers  filling  her  up  with  a  child  or  twins  once  a  year 
as  regular  as  the  clock  supposed  to  be  healthy  supposing 
I  risked  having  another 

After  ''healthy"  Joyce  adds  ''not  satisfied  till  they  have  us 
swollen  out  like  elephants  or  I  don't  know  what".^* 

Feeling  that  she  did  not  look  her  best  while  receiving 
Boylan,  Molly  explains: 

besides  scrooching  down  on  me  like  that  all  the  time  with 
his  big  hipbones  he's  heavy  too  with  his  hairy  chest  for  this 
heat  better  for  him  put  it  into  me  from  behind 

After  "heat"  Joyce  adds  "always  having  to  lie  down  for 
them".25 

Again  on  the  subject  of  Boylan  she  thinks:  "I  gave  my 
eyes  that  look  with  my  hair  a  bit  loose  from  the  tumbling 
and  my  tongue  between  my  lips  up  to  him  Thursday  Friday 
one  Saturday  two  Sunday  three  O  Lord  I  cant  wait  till  Mon- 
day". After  "him",  between  Molly's  report  of  her  recent  de- 
sire for  this  particular  male  and  her  expression  of  impatience 
for  reunion  with  him,  Joyce  inserts  "the  savage  brute".^^ 

Having  called  to  mind  the  "Aristocrats  Masterpiece"  and 
its  illustrations,  Molly  thinks:  "that's  the  kind  of  villainy 
they're  always  dreaming  about  with  not  another  thing  in 
their  empty  heads  then  tea  and  toast  for  him  and  newlaid 
eggs".  After  "him"  Joyce  adds  fuel  to  Molly's  resentment: 
"buttered  on  both  sides". ^^  At  a  later  stage,  after  "heads" 
he  inserts  "they  ought  to  get  slow  poison  the  half  of  them".-^ 

Yet   Molly    can    extenuate    the    treatment    men    accord 


86  PRESCOTT 

women.  About  Stephen's  nightwandering  she  thinks:  ''his 
poor  mother  wouldnt  Hke  that  if  she  was  ahve  ruining  him- 
self for  hfe  perhaps".  After  "perhaps"  Joyce  adds: 

still  its  a  lovely  hour  so  silent  I  used  to  love  coming  home 
after  dances  the  air  of  the  night  they  have  friends  they 
can  talk  to  weve  none  either  he  wants  what  he  wont  get 
or  its  some  woman  ready  to  stick  her  knife  in  you  I  hate 
that  in  women  no  wonder  they  treat  us  the  way  they  do  I 
suppose  its  all  the  troubles  we  have  makes  us  so  snappy  Im 
not  like  that^^ 

Later,  after  "do"  he  inserts  "we  are  a  dreadful  lot  of 
bitches"  .^^ 

When  she  is  in  the  affirmative  mood,  Molly  excels  in  the 
science  of  attracting  the  male.  Part  of  an  addition  in  manu- 
script reads:  "a  young  boy  would  like  me  I'd  confuse  him  a 
little  looking  at  him".^^  In  typescript,  after  "little"  Joyce 
adds  "and  make  him  turn  red".^^  In  proof,  between  "little" 
and  "and"  he  inserts  "alone  with  him  if  we  were  let  him  see 
my  garters  the  new  ones";  and  after  "looking  at  him"  he  adds 
"seduce  him  I  know  what  boys  feel  with  that  down  on  their 
cheek"  .^2 

Molly  also  knows  what  her  husband  feels.  She  is  consider- 
ing methods  of  retaining  his  attention  even  in  the  face  of 
competition:  "I  know  several  ways".  Following  this  phrase, 
in  manuscript,  Joyce  adds  a  specimen:  "touch  him  with  my 
veil  and  gloves  on  going  out  one  kiss  then  would  send  them 
all  spinning  however  alright  we'll  see  then".^^  In  proof,  be- 
tween "ways"  and  "touch"  he  adds  another  specimen:  "ask 
him  to  tuck  down  the  collar  of  my  blouse  or".^^  In  a  later 
proof,  he  changes  "several"  to  "plenty  of".^^ 

But  Molly's  technique  has  a  history,  and  we  are  admitted 
to  a  number  of  pages  in  the  chapter  on  The  Winning  of 
Leopold  Bloom.  She  remembers  how  she  thwarted  an  at- 
tempt at  a  proposal  by  Bloom:  "only  for  I  put  him  off  letting 
on  I  was  in  a  temper  with  my  hands  and  arms  full  of  pastry 
flour".  After  "flour"  Joyce  adds  "in  any  case  I  let  out  too 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  87 

much  the  night  before  talking  of  dreams  so  I  didnt  want  to 
let  him  know  more  than  was  good  for  him".^"^ 

In  connection  with  one  of  Molly's  amours,  Joyce,  in  type- 
script, adds  the  thought  ''he  [Bloom]  thinks  nothing  can 
happen  without  him  knowing" .^^  In  proof,  after  ''knowing" 
he  inserts  "he  hadnt  an  idea  about  my  mother  till  we  were 
engaged  otherwise  hed  never  have  got  me  so  cheap  as  he 
did".39 

Molly  recalls,  among  her  readings,  "the  Shadow  of  Ash- 
lydyat  Mrs  Henry  Wood  Henry  Dunbar  by  that  other 
woman".  After  "woman"  Joyce  inserts  "I  lent  him  after- 
wards with  Mulveys  photo  in  it  so  as  he  see  I  wasn't  with- 
out".4« 

We  gain  further  insight  into  Molly's  technique  when  her 
thought  comes  round  again  to  her  most  recent  lover:  "I 
wonder  was  I  too  heavy  sitting  on  his  knee  he  was  so  busy  he 
never  felt  me  easy".  After  "knee"  Joyce  adds  "when  I  took 
off  only  my  blouse  and  skirt  first" .^^  Later,  after  "first"  he 
adds  "in  the  other  room".^^  Later  still,  between  "knee"  and 
"when"  he  inserts  "I  made  him  sit  on  the  easychair  pur- 
posely"; and  between  "me"  and  "easy",  "I  hope  my  breath 
was  sweet  after  those  kissing  comfits".^^ 

The  last  example  which  I  shall  offer  of  additions  to  Molly's 
technique  occurs  in  her  thoughts  on  Stephen  Dedalus  as  a 
possible  successor  to  Boylan:  "111  read  and  study  all  I  can 
find  so  he  wont  think  me  stupid".  After  "find"  Joyce  adds 
"or  learn  a  bit  by  heart  if  I  knew  who  he  likes".'** 

Bound  up  with  Molly's  desire  to  attract  the  male  is  an  old 
streak  of  exhibitionism.  In  manuscript,  Joyce  adds  a  child- 
hood memory:  "I'm  sure  that  fellow  opposite  used  to  be 
watching  with  the  lights  out  in  the  summer  and  I  in  my 
skin  hopping  around  I  used  to  love  myself  then  stripped  at 
the  washstand  dabbing  and  creaming".*^  In  proof,  after 
*'creaming"  he  adds  further  "only  when  it  came  to  the  cham- 
ber performance  I  put  out  the  light  too  so  then  there  were 
2  of  us"  .46 


00  PRESCOTT 

Now  Molly  is  considering  her  program  for  the  projected 
concert:  ''111  sing  Winds  that  blow  from  the  south  that  he 
gave  after  the  choirstairs  performance".  After  "performance" 
Joyce  adds  ''111  change  that  lace  on  my  black  dress  to  show 
oflf  my  bubs  and  111  yes  by  God  111  get  that  big  fan 
mended".^^  In  the  light  of  this  addition,  another  becomes 
amusing.  Molly's  thought  has  run  on  to  Fanny  M'Coy: 
"skinny  thing  with  a  turn  in  her  eye  trying  to  sing  my  songs 
shed  want  to  be  born  all  over  again  and  her  old  green  dress 
like  dabbling  on  a  rainy  day".  After  "dress"  Joyce  adds  "with 
the  lowneck  as  she  cant  attract  them  any  other  way".^^ 

A  derived  form  of  exhibitionism  inspires  two  additions. 
Molly  is  thinking  about  Mulvey,  her  first  lover:  "perhaps  hes 
married  some  girl  on  the  black  water  I  was  a  bit  wild  after". 
Following  "black  water"  Joyce  adds  "she  little  knows  what 

1  did  with  her  beloved  husband  before  he  ever  dreamt  of  her 
in  broad  daylight  too  in  the  sight  of  the  whole  world  you 
might  say".^^  Later,  after  "say"  he  inserts  "they  could  have 
put  an  article  about  it  in  the  Chronicle"  .^^ 

Concerning  the  possibility  of  Stephen  as  successor  to 
Boylan,  in  a  context  recently  cited,  Molly  thinks:  "and  I  can 
teach  him  [Stephen]  the  other  part  111  make  him  feel  all 
over  him  then  hell  write  about  me  lover  and  mistress  publicly 
too  with  our  photographs  in  the  papers  when  he  becomes 
famous".  To  insure  the  full  satisfaction  of  Molly's  desire  for 
the  advertising  of  her  conquest,  Joyce  adds  "all"  before  "the 
papers".^^ 

After  her  person,  if  not  before,  the  most  powerful  weapon 
in  a  woman's  arsenal  is  her  clothing  —  a  fact  of  which  Molly 
is  not  unmindful.  From  the  text  of  one  galley  we  may  in- 
fer that,  when  she  had  removed  her  blouse  and  skirt,  she 
came  in  to  Boylan  in  "a  short  blue  silk  petticoat,"  which 
Bloom  later  sees.  But  Joyce  deletes  "short",  and  for  "silk 
petticoat"  he  substitutes  "accordion  underskirt  of  blue  silk 
moirette,".^^  Molly's  personal  charms  now  turn  out  to  have 
been  reinforced,  not  by  a  plain  blue  silk  undergarment,  but 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  89 

by  one  that  is  likely  to  have  acted  upon  Boylan  more  strik- 
ingly. Furthermore,  the  shortness  is  not  permanently  elimi- 
nated. A  short  underskirt  would  be  likely,  by  flaring,  to  add 
fullness  to  Molly's  already  sizable  buttocks,  an  effect  which 
would  hardly  escape  the  sexological  technician  in  Molly  — 
and  didn't.  For  Joyce  merely  postpones  this  part  of  his  de- 
scription of  the  underskirt  to  Molly's  memory  of  Boylan's 
behavior:  "no  thats  no  way  for  him  has  he  no  manners  .  .  . 
slapping  us  behind  like  that  on  my  bottom  .  .  .  O  well  I 
suppose  its  because  they  were  so  plump  and  tempting  in  my 
short  petticoat  he  couldnt  resist".  ^^ 

The  relationship  between  the  uses  of  women's  clothing 
and  women's  preoccupation  with  and  awareness  of  clothing, 
hardly  needs  arguing.  Molly  shows  repeatedly  that  she  has 
an  eye  and  a  memory  for  her  wearing  apparel  and  others', 
both  women's  and  men's.  Thus,  in  manuscript,  she  thinks 
concerning  Boylan:  ''lovely  stuff  in  that  blue  suit  he  had  on 
and  stylish  tie  and  silk  socks  he's  certainly  well  off".^^  In 
proof,  this  passage  ends:  "and  socks  with  the  skyblue  silk 
things  on  them  hes  certainly  welloff".  After  "welloff"  Joyce 
adds  "I  know  by  the  cut  his  clothes  have  and  his  heavy 
watch".^^ 

Molly  recalls  her  Spanish  days: 

thats  why  I  was  afraid  when  that  other  ferocious  old  bull 
began  to  charge  the  banderilleros  and  the  brutes  of  men 
shouting  bravo  toro  sure  the  women  were  as  bad  ripping 
all  the  whole  insides  out  of  those  poor  horses 

After  "banderilleros"  Joyce  inserts  "with  the  things  in  their 
hats".  Then,  after  the  newly  introduced  "the",  he  adds 
further  "sashes  and  the  2".  And  after  "bad"  he  inserts  "in 
their  nice  white  mantillas".^^ 

Molly  remembers  the  departure  of  a  friend  from  Gibraltar: 
"she  had  a  gorgeous  wrap  on  her  for  the  voyage".  Follow- 
ing this  phrase  Joyce  adds,  in  typescript:  "made  very  pe- 
culiarly to  one  side  like  and  it  was  extremely  pretty".^'  In 


90  PRESCOTT 

proof,  after  "wrap"  he  adds  ''of  some  special  kind  of  blue 
colour".^^ 

Molly  is  thinking  about  Mulvey:  "my  blouse  open  for  his 
last  day".  After  "day"  Joyce  adds  "transparent  kind  of  shirt 
he  had  I  could  see  his  chest  pink".^^ 

About  the  photograph  of  herself  which  Bloom  showed  to 
Stephen,  Molly  thinks:  "its  not  good  of  me  still  I  look 
young  in  it".  After  "me"  Joyce  inserts  "I  ought  to  have  got 
it  taken  in  drapery  that  never  looks  out  of  fashion"  .^^ 

True  to  life,  Molly  has  thoughts  which  we  associate  partic- 
ularly with  the  feminine  mind.  She  recalls  "that  old  faggot 
Mrs  Riordan":  "I  suppose  she  was  pious  because  no  man 
would  look  at  her  twice".  After  "twice"  Joyce  adds  "I  hope 
111  never  be  like  her".^^ 

A  little  later  Molly  thinks:  "I  wish  some  or  other  would 
take  me  sometimes  when  he's  there  and  kiss  me  in  his  arms". 
Apparently  the  printer  has  been  guilty  of  an  omission,  as 
the  typescript  reads  "some  man".^^  In  proof,  Joyce  changes 
"some"  to  "somebody",  which  he  then  replaces  with  the 
original  "some  man"  ^^  —  ehminating  the  neutral  "-body" 
so  that  Molly,  as  a  female  mind,  again  thinks  of  the  some- 
body in  terms  of  mascuHnity. 

The  maternal  instinct  in  Molly  also  expresses  itself:  "sup- 
posing I  risked  having  another  not  of  him  [Boylan]  though 
still  if  he  was  married  Im  sure  hed  have  a  fine  strong  child  but 
I  dont  know  Poldy  has  more  spunk  in  him".  After  the  second 
"him"  Joyce  adds  "yes  thatd  be  awfully  jolly".^^ 

Molly's  experience  as  a  mother  inspires  an  addition.  She 
thinks :  "an  hour  he  was  at  them  [her  breasts]  Im  sure  by  the 
clock  all  the  pleasure  those  men  get  out  of  a  woman".  After 
"clock"  Joyce  adds  "like  some  kind  of  a  big  infant  I  had  at 
me  they  want  everything  in  their  mouth".^^ 

Molly  considers  the  time:  "a  quarter  after  what  an  un- 
earthly hour".  After  "hour"  Joyce  adds  "I  suppose  theyre 
just  getting  up  in  China  now  combing  their  pigtails  for  the 
day".^^  At  a  later  stage,  after  "combing"  Joyce  adds  "out"  ^^ 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  91 

—  completing  a  thought  most  hkely  to  occur  to  a  woman 
with  thick  long  hair  which  she  probably  has  to  comb  out 
each  morning.  It  should  also  be  remembered  that  we  are 
dealing  with  the  year  1904,  when  all  women  wore  their  hair 
long. 

The  possible  return  of  Stephen  Dedalus  moves  Molly  to 
think:  "first  I  want  to  do  the  place  up  someway".  Joyce  brings 
out  the  housewife  in  Molly  by  inserting,  after  this  phrase, 
"the  dust  grows  in  it  I  think  while  Im  asleep".^^ 

Both  cause  and  effect  of  Molly's  particular  experience  as 
a  woman  is  her  perspicacity  in  all  matters  relating  to  sex. 
She  is  probably  not  exaggerating  greatly  when,  in  consider- 
ing Dublin  women,  she  thinks:  "passion  God  help  their  poor 
head  I  knew  more  about  men  and  life  when  I  was  15  than 
theyll  all  know  at  50".^^ 

She  recalls  a  choir  party  at  which  Leopold  sprained  his 
foot:  "Miss  Stack  bringing  him  flowers  the  worst  old  ones 
she  could  find  at  the  bottom  of  the  basket".  After  "basket" 
Joyce  adds,  in  proof:  "with  her  old  maids  voice  trying  to 
imagine  he  was  dying  on  account  of  her  to  never  see  thy  face 
again".'''^  And  between  a  later  proof  ^^  and  the  published 
text,  again  after  "basket",  Joyce  must  have  introduced  "any- 
thing at  all  to  get  into  a  mans  bedroom". 

Regarding  a  former  confessor  Molly  thinks:  "he  had  a 
nice  fat  hand  the  palm  moist  always  I  wouldn't  mind  feel- 
ing it".  After  "it"  Joyce  inserts  "neither  would  he  Id  say  by 
his  bullneck".^2 

Of  her  experience  with  Boylan  she  thinks,  in  manuscript: 
"no  I  never  in  all  my  life  felt  anyone  had  one  the  size  of  that 
to  make  you  feel  full  up".  Before  "no"  Joyce  inserts  "he 
must  have  eaten  oysters  I  think  a  few  dozen"."^^  In  proof, 
after  "up"  Joyce  adds  "he  must  have  a  whole  sheep  after" ."^^ 

In  manuscript,  Molly's  observing  eye  has  learned  to  recog- 
nize vicarious  affection:  "she  used  to  be  always  embracing 
me  Josie  whenever  he  was  there  meaning  him  of  course". 
After  "course"  Joyce  adds: 


92  PRESCOTT 

glauming  me  over  and  when  I  said  I  washed  up  and  down 
as  far  as  possible  asking  me  and  did  you  wash  possible 
the  women  are  always  egging  on  to  that  when  he's  there 
they  know  by  his  eye  the  kind  he  is  what  spoils  him  ^^ 

In  proof,  after  ''his"  Joyce  adds  ''sly'';  after  "eye",  "bhnking 
a  bit  when  they  come  out  with  something" J^  In  a  later 
proof,  after  "bit"  he  adds  "putting  on  the  indifferent"/^ 

Again  in  manuscript,  Molly's  wardrobe  occupies  her  at- 
tention: "Ive  no  clothes  at  all  the  men  won't  look  at  you 
and  women  try  to  walk  on  you"J^  In  proof,  this  passage  has 
become:  "I've  no  clothes  at  all  cutting  up  this  old  hat  and 
patching  up  the  other  the  men  won't  look  at  you  and  women 
try  to  walk  on  you".  After  "on  you"  Joyce  adds  "because 
they  know  youve  no  man  then"J^ 

Besides  representing  the  eternal  feminine,  Molly  lives  un- 
der and  is  conditioned  by  particular  circumstances. 

She  gives  evidence  of  the  fact  that  she  is  the  daughter  of  a 
soldier:  "I  hate  the  mention  of  politics  after  the  war  that 
Pretoria  and  Ladysmith  and  Bloemfontein  where  Gardner, 
Lieut  Stanley,  G,  8th  Bn,  Somerset  Lt.  Infantry  killed".  For 
"Somerset  Lt.  Infantry  killed"  Joyce  substitutes  "2nd  East 
Lanes  Rgt  of  enteric  fever"  .^^  The  historical  detail  ^^  which 
Joyce  introduces,  not  only  gives  us  the  feel  of  a  mind  of  the 
time,  but  also  prepares  for  a  stroke  of  characterization.  Al- 
most immediately  afterward,  though  in  a  later  version,  Molly 
thinks : 

they  could  have  made  their  peace  in  the  beginning  or  old 
00m  Paul  and  the  rest  of  the  old  Krugers  go  and  fight  it 
out  between  them  instead  of  dragging  on  for  years  killing 
any  finelooking  men  there  were  I  love  to  see  a  regiment 
pass  in  review 

After  "were"  Joyce  adds  "with  their  fever  if  he  was  even 
decently  shot  it  wouldnt  have  been  so  mad".^^  The  soldier's 
daughter  might  have  condoned  the  loss  of  her  man  had  he 
died  in  the  field.^^ 

Molly  is  proud  of  her  military  connection.  She  is  thinking 
about  Kathleen  Kearney  and  her  voice  pupils: 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  93 

anything  in  the  world  to  make  themselves  someway  inter- 
esting theyd  die  down  dead  if  ever  they  got  a  chance  of 
walking  down  the  Alameda  on  an  officer's  arm  like  me  on 
the  bandnight 

After  "interesting"  Joyce  adds  ''soldiers  daughter  am  I  ay 
and  whose  are  you  bootmakers  and  publicans  I  beg  your 
pardon  coach  I  thought  you  were  a  wheelbarrow".^^ 

Molly's  military  background  also  influences  her  speech.^^ 
She  remembers:  *'he  [Bloom]  was  throwing  his  sheeps  eyes 
at  those  two  I  tried  to  wink  at  him  first".  After  ''two"  Joyce 
inserts  "doing  skirt  duty  up  and  down".^^ 

Molly's  upbringing  in  Gibraltar  has  left  its  mark,  and  the 
Spanish  content  of  her  mind  is  carefully  built  up. 

An  addition  to  this  influence  is  made  in  Bloom's  memory 
of  a  night  on  which  he  went  down  to  the  pantry  to  get  some- 
thing for  Molly:  "What  was  it  she  wanted?  The  Malaga 
raisins.  Before  Rudy  was  born."  After  the  second  phrase 
Joyce  inserts  "Thinking  of  Spain"  ^^  —  adding  an  insight  be- 
yond Bloom's  mind  into  that  of  his  wife. 

The  additions  to  this  side  of  Molly  in  her  own  thought  are 
understandably  more  numerous.  In  connection  with  a  con- 
cihatory  mission  to  an  employer  of  Bloom's,  she  recalls:  "he 
gave  me  a  great  eye  once  or  twice".  For  "eye"  Joyce  sub- 
stitutes   "mirada".^^ 

Molly  considers  the  boredom  of  her  existence:  "who  did 
I  get  the  last  letter  from  O  Mrs  Dwenn  now  whatever  pos- 
sessed her  to  write  after  so  many  years".  Following  "years" 
Joyce  inserts  "to  know  the  recipe  I  had  for  olla  podrida". 
Then,  for  the  internationally  known  "olla  podrida"  Joyce 
substitutes  the  indigenous  "pisto  madrileno"  ^^  —  bringing 
us  closer  to  native  Spain. 

Shortly  afterward  Molly  thinks: 

he  [Mulvey]  wanted  to  touch  mine  with  his  for  a  moment 
but  I  wouldnt  let  him  for  fear  you  never  know  consump- 
tion or  leave  me  with  a  child  that  old  senant  Ines  told  me 
that  one  drop  even  if  it  got  into  you  at  all 


94  PRESCOTT 

After  ''child"  Joyce  adds  ''embarazada".^^  One  may  suppose 
that  Molly  has  recalled  the  key  word  in  the  old  servant's 
admonition,  about  which  we  then  hear  more. 

Molly  considers  marital  relations:  ''her  husband  found  it 
out  well  and  if  he  did  can  he  undo  it".  After  "undo  it"  Joyce 
inserts  "hes  coronado  anyway  whatever  he  does".^^ 

Bloom's  kiss  revolts  Molly:  "pfooh  the  dirty  brutes  the 
mere  thought  is  enough  of  course  a  woman  wants  to  be  em- 
braced 20  times  a  day  almost  to  make  her  look  young".  After 
"enough"  Joyce  adds  "I  kiss  the  feet  of  you  senorita  theres 
some  sense  in  that  didnt  he  kiss  our  halldoor  yes  he  did  what 

a  madman  nobody  understands  his  cracked  ideas  but  me 
stin".92 

Toward  the  close  of  her  reverie  Molly  thinks  of  "the 
Greeks  and  the  jews  and  those  handsome  Moors  all  in  white 
like  kings  and  the  figtrees  in  the  Alameda  gardens".  After 
"jews"  Joyce  adds: 

and  the  fowl  market  all  clucking  and  the  poor  donkeys 
slipping  half  asleep  and  the  vague  fellows  in  the  cloaks 
asleep  in  the  shade  on  the  steps  and  the  big  wheels  of  the 
carts  of  the  bulls 

After  "kings",  he  adds: 

asking  you  to  sit  down  in  their  bit  of  a  shop  and  Ronda 
with  the  old  windows  two  glancing  eyes  a  lattice  hid  and 
O  that  awful  deepdown  torrent  O  and  the  sea  the  sea 
crimson  sometimes  like  fire  and  the  glorious  sunsets  ^^ 

In  a  later  galley,  after  "windows"  Joyce  inserts  "of  the 
posadas";  after  "hid",  "for  her  lover  to  kiss  the  iron  and  the 
night  we  stayed  the  watchman  going  about  serene  with  his 
lamp".^"^  The  straightforward  Spanish  additions  are  obvious 
enough.  But,  as  Gilbert  has  pointed  out,  Joyce  also  has 
Molly's  Spanish  background  exert  an  influence  upon  her 
English,  for  "vague"  and  "serene"  are  "echoes  of  common 
Spanish  words  she  used  to  hear  at  Gibraltar;  vago,  a  vagrant, 
and  sereno,  the  night-watchman's  cry  as  he  goes  his  rounds, 
'All's  well  -  serenor  "  ^^ 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  95 

Another  important  aspect  of  Molly  is  her  limited  intel- 
lectual equipment.  Her  ignorance  transpires  chiefly  in  her 
beliefs  and  in  her  language.  Again  and  again  her  mind 
throws  out  popular  superstitions.  She  recalls  the  death  of 
Gardner,  to  whom  she  had  given  a  ring  which  had  been 
presented  to  her  ''for  luck"  by  Mulvey:  "but  they  [the  Boers] 
were  well  beaten  all  the  same  as  if  it  brought  its  bad  luck 
with  it  still  it  must  have  been  pure  16  carrot  gold  because  it 
was  very  heavy".  After  ''with  it"  Joyce  adds  "like  an  opal  or 
pearr'.9« 

On  the  chamber  pot  Molly  thinks:  "easy  O  Lord  how 
noisy".  Following  this  phrase  Joyce  adds  "I  hope  theyre 
bubbles  on  it  for  a  wad  of  money  from  some  fellow".^^ 

A  number  of  additions  reveal  Molly's  faith  in  cards.  With 
regard  to  Stephen  Dedalus  she  suddenly  remembers: 

wait  by  God  yes  wait  yes  he  was  on  the  cards  this  morn- 
ing when  I  laid  out  the  deck  a  young  stranger  you  met 
before  I  thought  it  meant  him  but  hes  no  chicken  nor  a 
stranger  either  didnt  I  dream  something  too  yes  there  was 
something  about  poetry  in  it 

After  "deck"  Joyce  points  up  Molly's  hope  by  inserting 
"union  with".  After  the  first  "stranger"  he  adds  "neither 
dark  nor  fair";  after  "either": 

besides  my  face  was  turned  the  other  way  what  was  the 
7th  after  that  the  10  of  spades  for  a  journey  by  land  then 
there  was  a  letter  on  its  way  and  scandals  too  the  3  queens 
and  the  8  of  diamonds  for  a  rise  in  society  yes  wait  it  all 
came  out  and  2  red  8s  for  new  garments  look  at  that  and  ^^ 

Molly  is  still  thinking  of  Stephen:  "if  I  can  only  get  in 
with  a  handsome  young  poet  at  my  age".  After  "age"  Joyce 
inserts  "111  throw  them  the  1st  thing  in  the  morning  till  I 
see  if  the  wishcard  comes  out  or  111  try  pairing  the  lady  her- 
self and  see  if  he  comes  out".^^ 

Concerning  her  husband  Molly  thinks:  "so  well  he  may 
sleep  and  sigh  the  great  suggester  and  Im  to  be  slooching 
around  down  in  the  kitchen  to  get  his  lordship  his  break- 
fast". After  "suggester"  Joyce  adds  "if  he  knew  how  he  came 


96  PRESCOTT 

out  on  the  cards  a  dark  man  in  some  perplexity  between  2  ys 
too  in  prison  for  Lord  knows  what  he  does  that  I  don't 
know". 100 

The  superstitiousness  of  what  rehgion  has  adhered  to 
Molly,  is  exemplified  by  her  comment  on  an  act  of  faith, 
part  of  an  addition  in  typescript:  ''the  candle  I  Ht  that 
evening  in  Whitefriars'  street  chapel  for  the  month  of  May 
see  it  brought  its  luck".^^^  Immediately  before  this  thought, 
in  proof,  Molly  recalls  the  thunderclap  which  had  disturbed 
her  sleep  earlier:  ''till  that  thunder  woke  me  up  as  if  the 
world  was  coming  to  an  end  God  be  merciful  to  us  I  thought 
the  heavens  were  coming  down  about  us  when  I  blessed 
myself  and  said  a  Hail  Mary".  After  "about  us"  Joyce 
inserts  "to  punish  us".^^^  Forgetting  the  natural  attitude 
which  she  usually  maintains  toward  sex,  Molly,  in  the  mo- 
ment of  fear,  tries  to  appease  the  wrathful  thundergod. 

Later,  she  considers: 

atheists  or  whatever  they  call  themselves  go  and  wash  the 
cobbles  off  themselves  first  then  they  go  howling  for  the 
priest  and  they  dying  and  why  why  because  theyre  afraid 

After  "afraid"  Joyce  adds  "of  hell  on  account  of  their  bad 
conscience".^^^ 

As  I  have  said,  Molly's  language,  also,  betrays  her  ig- 
norance. To  begin  with,  it  abounds  in  error.  While  Joyce 
corrected  the  grammar  of  her  Italian  prototype,  he  brought 
Molly  closer  to  her  model  by  introducing  mistakes. 

When  Molly  remembers,  "that  thunder  woke  me  up  as  if 
the  world  were  coming  to  an  end",  Joyce  changes  "were"  to 
"was".io4 

Molly  recalls  Bloom's  behavior  when  she  once  denied  a 
desire  of  his:  "he  slept  on  the  floor  half  the  night  naked  and 
wouldnt  eat  any  breakfast  or  speak  a  word".  After  "naked" 
Joyce  introduces  a  confusion  of  tenses  difficult  to  match  even 
in  Molly's  speech:  "the  way  the  jews  used  when  somebody 
dies  belonged  to  them".^^^ 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  97 

The  memory  of  Boylan's  behavior,  in  a  passage  part  of 
which  I  have  aheady  cited,  vexes  Molly:  "no  that's  no  way 
for  him  has  he  no  manners  nor  no  refinement  in  his  nature". 
Joyce  adds  one  barbarism  to  another  by  inserting,  after  ''nor 
no  refinement",  ''nor  nothing".^^^  Later,  he  'completes'  the 
negation  by  inserting  "no"  between  "nor"  and  "nothing".^^^ 

Molly's  limited  command  of  the  idiom  helps  explain  her 
difficulty  with  "Unusual  polysyllables  of  foreign  origin". ^^^ 
In  manuscript  Joyce  adds  the  thought,  concerning  letters  of 
condolence,  "your  sad  bereavement  symphathy  I  always  make 
that  mistake  and  newphew  with  you  in".^^^  A  line  runs 
through  the  first  "h"  in  "symphathy"  and  another  through 
the  first  "w"  in  "newphew".  The  author,  however,  did  not 
indicate  his  intention  clearly  enough,  for  in  proof  the  addi- 
tion reads:  "your  sad  bereavement  sympathy  I  always  make 
that  mistake  and  nephew  with  you  in".  For  the  "p"  in 
"sympathy"  Joyce  therefore  substitutes  "ph"  with  a  line 
through  the  "h",  writing  beside  it  the  instruction  "(repro- 
duisez  ainsi)".  Then,  for  the  first  "e"  in  "nephew"  he  sub- 
stitutes "ew"  with  a  line  through  the  "w",  repeating  his  in- 
struction and  at  the  same  time  changing  "you"  to  "2  double 
yous"  —  a  more  likely  error.^^^  In  other  words,  he  has  re- 
stored visual  images  as  they  run  through  Molly's  mind,  and, 
through  them,  the  process  of  her  corrections.^^^ 

Soon  afterward,  again  in  manuscript,  while  Molly  con- 
siders a  correspondence  with  Boylan,  Joyce  adds  a  thought 
in  part  of  which  she  gropes  for  a  polysyllable: 

I  could  write  the  answer  in  bed  to  let  him  imagine  me 
short  just  a  few  words  not  those  long  crossed  letters  Floey 
Dillon  used  to  write  to  the  fellow  that  jilted  her  out  of 
the  ladies'  letterwriter  acting  with  precipat  precip  itancy 
with  equal  candour  the  greatest  earthly  happiness  answer 
to  a  gentleman's  proposal  affirmatively  ^^^ 

In  proof,  besides  a  few  irrelevant  changes,  the  groping  phrase 
has  become  "precipit  precipitancy".  After  "letterwriter" 
Joyce  adds  "when  I  told  her  to  say  a  few  simple  words  he 


98  PRESCOTT 

could  twist  how  he  hked  not".^^^  Molly  would  convert  her 
linguistic  weakness  into  lovers'  strategy. 

From  Gibraltar  days  she  recalls  Mrs.  Rubio,  who  domi- 
neered over  her  "because  I  didnt  run  into  mass  often  enough 
in  Santa  Maria  to  please  her  with  all  her  miracles  of  the 
saints  and  the  sun  dancing  3  times  on  Easter  Sunday  morn- 
ing". After  "morning"  Joyce  adds  "and  when  the  priest  was 
going  by  with  the  Vatican  to  the  dying  blessing  herself  for 
his  Majestad".ii4 

Joyce  gives  Molly  an  awareness  of  her  intellectual  limita- 
tions when  she  thinks  about  her  daughter:  "such  an  idea 
for  him  to  send  the  girl  down  there  to  learn  to  take  photo- 
graphs only  hed  do  a  thing  like  that".  After  "photographs" 
Joyce  adds  "on  account  of  his  grandfather  instead  of  send- 
ing her  to  Skerry's  academy  where  shed  have  to  learn  not  like 
me".^^^  Later,  after  "me"  he  inserts  "getting  all  Is  at 
school".ii« 

No  wonder,  then,  that  Molly's  general  level  of  speech  lies 
among  the  lower  reaches  of  English  usage.  To  heighten  this 
effect  Joyce  puts  into  her  mouth  a  considerable  number  of 
colloquialisms.  One  addition,  the  final  form  of  which  I  have 
already  cited,  shows  Joyce  at  work  colloquializing  Molly's 
expression:  "yes  thatd  be  awfully  jolly"  began  as  "yes  that 
would  be  awfully  jolly". ^^^ 

Impatient  of  possible  exposure  during  her  projected  trip 
to  Belfast  with  Boylan,  Molly  exclaims:  "O  let  them  all  go 
and  smother  themselves  for  all  I  care".  Joyce  replaces  the 
second  "all"  with  "the  fat  lof'.i^s 

The  coming  on  of  menstruation  gives  Molly  something 
further  to  exclaim  about:  "O  let  me  up  out  of  this  pooh". 
After  "O"  Joyce  inserts  "Jamesy".^^^ 

Molly  considers:  "I  think  111  cut  all  this  hair  off  me  there 
scalding  me  I  might  look  like  a  young  girl".  After  "girl"  Joyce 
adds  "wouldnt  he  get  the  takein  the  next  time  he  turned  up 
my  clothes  Id  give  anything  to  watch  his  face".  Then  Joyce 
replaces  "takein"  with  "great  suckin",  and  after  "clothes"  he 
adds  "on  me".i2o 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  99 

But  Joyce  does  not  rest  content  with  a  highly  colloquial 
idiom  for  Molly.  As  a  Dubliner  who  has  not  been  much 
standardized  by  education,  she  would  also  be  likely  to  show 
the  influence  of  dialect  upon  her  speech.  Therefore,  Joyce 
gives  her  a  good  proportion  of  dialect  usage. 

Thus,  when  Molly  thinks  concerning  Bloom,  ''of  course 
he  prefers  hanging  about  the  house",  Joyce  changes  ''hang- 
ing" to  "plottering".i2i 

In  a  context  one  version  of  which  I  treated  earlier,  Molly 
thinks:  "Kathleen  Kearney  and  her  lot  of  squealers  they'd 
die  down  dead  if  they  ever  got  a  chance  of  walking  down 
the  Alameda  on  an  officer's  arm  like  me  on  the  bandnight". 
After  "squealers"  Joyce  adds  ''shitting  around  talking  about 
politics  they  know  as  much  about  as  my  backside  anything 
in  the  world  to  make  themselves  someway  interesting". ^^2 

On  the  chamber  pot  Molly  thinks:  "I  remember  one  time 
I  could  do  it  out  straight  whisthng  like  a  man  almost".  Joyce 
replaces  "do"  with  "scout".^^^ 

Concerning  a  gynecologist  Molly  remembers:  "still  I  liked 
him  when  he  sat  down  to  write  the  thing  out  frowning  so 
severe  his  nose  intelligent  like  that  you  be  damned  you  lying 
bitch".  For  "bitch"  Joyce  substitutes  "strap''.^^^ 

Molly  returns  to  the  subject  of  her  latest  adultery:  "111 
let  him  [Bloom]  know  if  thats  what  he  wanted  that  his  wife 
is  fucked  and  damn  well  fucked  too  not  by  him  5  or  6  times 
running".  For  "running"  Joyce  substitutes  "handrun- 
ning".i25 

Another  important  aspect  of  Molly,  in  which  she  contrasts 
with  her  mild  husband,  is  her  irritability.  Her  frustration 
as  Mrs.  Bloom,  her  husband's  ordering  of  breakfast,  and  the 
inception  of  menstruation  less  than  four  days  before  Boylan 
is  next  to  arrive,  add  fuel  to  a  temperamental  petulance.  Her 
speech,  as  a  result,  is  full  of  twitching  impatiences,  a  number 
of  which  Joyce  introduces  in  revision. 

Suspecting  that  Bloom  has  spent  the  evening  with  another 
woman,  Molly  recalls  his  flirtation  with  a  servant:  "I  couldn't 
even  touch  him  if  I  thought  he  was  with  a  dirty  liar  and 


100  PRESCOTT 

sloven  like  that  one".  After  ''dirty"  Joyce  adds  '*bare- 
faced".^26 

About  the  trip  to  Belfast  Molly  thinks:  "O  I  suppose 
there'll  be  the  usual  idiots  of  men  gaping  at  us".  Following 
''us",  in  manuscript,  Joyce  adds  "with  their  eyes  as  stupid 
as  ever  they  can  be".^^^  In  proof,  after  "can"  he  inserts  "pos- 
sibly".i28 

Molly  considers  Bloom's  late  return:  "well  thats  a  nice 
hour  for  him  to  be  coming  home  at  to  anybody".  After 
"hour"  Joyce  charges  Molly's  grievance  more  highly  by  in- 
serting "of  the  night".i29 

In  one  passage,  Joyce  makes  alterations  which  seem  to  be 
intended  to  render  a  changing  attitude.  Molly  recalls  the 
boredom  of  Gibraltar:  "as  bad  as  now  with  the  hands  hang- 
ing off  me  looking  out  of  the  window  if  there  was  a  nice 
fellow  even  in  the  opposite  house  the  meat  and  the  coalmans 
bell".  After  "house"  Joyce  adds: 

that  idiot  medical  in  Holies  street  the  nurse  was  after 
when  I  put  on  my  gloves  and  hat  at  the  window  to  show 
I  was  going  out  not  a  notion  what  I  meant  arent  they 
thick  youd  want  to  put  it  up  on  a  big  poster  for  them  not 
even  if  you  shake  their  hands  twice  where  does  their  great 
intelligence  come  in  Id  like  to  know 

Then,  as  if  realizing  that  Molly's  first  thought  of  a  man  she 
had  desired  would  be  likely  to  be  favorable,  Joyce  deletes 
"idiot".  And  after  "twice"  he  adds  "he  didnt  recognize  me 
either  outside  Westland  row  chapel".^^^  As  Molly  dwells 
on  the  subject,  she  becomes  exasperated.  In  a  later  galley, 
Joyce  introduces  more  scorn  with  more  signs:  after  "thick" 
he  adds  "never  understand  what  you  say  even";  he  deletes 
"their"  before  "hands",  and  after  "twice"  adds  "with  the 
left";  after  "either"  he  adds  "when  I  half  frowned  at  him"; 
and  after  "know",  the  final  fling:  "grey  matter  they  have  it 
all  in  their  tail  if  you  ask  me".^^^ 

From  such  general  irritability  it  is  only  a  step  to  temper. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  loi 

In  revising,  Joyce  heightens  Molly's  inflammability.  She 
considers  a  pair  of  stockings  that  are  laddered  after  one 
day's  wear:  **I  could  have  brought  them  back  to  Sparrows 
this  morning  and  made  them  change  them  only  not  to  run 
the  risk  of  walking  into  him  and  ruining  the  whole  thing". 
For  ''made  them"  Joyce  substitutes  "kick  up  a  row  and  make 
that  one",  and  after  "not  to"  he  adds  "upset  myself  and".^^^ 

In  private  Molly  does  not  curb  her  temper.  She  remembers 
her  daughter's  refusal  to  go  on  an  errand:  "till  I  gave  her  a 
damn  fine  crack  across  the  ear  for  herself  she  had  me  that 
exasperated  that  was  the  last  time  she  turned  on  the  tear- 
trap".  In  manuscript,  after  "herself"  Joyce  adds  "take  that 
for  answering  me  like  that".^^^  In  proof,  to  heighten  Molly's 
anger,  he  alters  "a"  to  "2"  and  "crack"  to  "cracks".  After 
"like  that"  he  adds  "and  that  for  your  impudence";  after 
"exasperated",  "of  course  because  she  has  nobody  to  com- 
mand her  as  she  said  herself  well  if  he  doesn't  correct  her 
faith  I  will".^^^  In  a  later  galley,  after  "course"  he  inserts 
an  explanation  for  Molly's  violence:  "I  was  badtempered  too 
because  how  was  it  I  didnt  sleep  the  night  before  cheese  I 
ate  was  it  and  I  told  her  over  and  over  again  not  to  leave 
knives  crossed  like  that".^^^  In  a  still  later  galley,  further 
extenuation  is  added:  between  "course"  and  "I"  Joyce  inserts 
"contradicting",  and  after  "how  was  it"  he  adds  "there  was 
a  weed  in  the  tea  or".^^^  But,  explaining  or  no  explaining, 
Molly  is  easily  angered. 

Occasionally,  her  temper  goads  her  to  cruelty.  She  recalls 
a  boatride  on  which  Bloom  proved  a  wretched  oarsman:  "in 
his  flannel  trousers  Id  like  to  have  tattered  them  down  off 
him  before  all  the  people  and  give  him  what  that  one  calls 
flagellate  do  him  all  the  good  in  the  world".  Molly  may  not 
be  at  home  with  the  'jawbreaker,'  but  Joyce  makes  certain 
that  she  finds  the  action  it  represents  congenial:  after  "flagel- 
late" he  adds  "till  he  was  black  and  blue".^^^ 

Incensed  at  the  thought  of  her  husband's  unsatisfying  at- 
tentions, Molly  threatens:  "I'll  make  him  do  it  again  if  he 


102  PRESCOTT 

doesn't  mind  himself  I  wonder  was  it  her  Josie".  After  ''him- 
self" Joyce  adds  ''and  sleep  down  in  the  coalcellar''.^^^  Later, 
after  "coalcellar"  he  adds  "with  the  blackbeetles^.i^^  Still 
later,  he  deletes  "down"  after  "sleep"  to  introduce  a  further 
refinement  before  "sleep":  "lock  him  down  to".^*^ 

In  addition  to  temper,  Molly  reveals  a  streak  of  spiteful- 
ness.  About  her  affair  with  Bartell  d'Arcy,  she  thinks:  "Fll 
tell  him  [Bloom]  about  that  some  day  not  now  and  surprise 
him  he  thinks  nothing  can  happen  without  him  knowing". 
After  "surprise  him"  Joyce  adds  "ay  and  111  take  him  there 
and  show  the  very  place  too".^^^  Later,  between  "too"  and 
"he"  Joyce  inserts  "so  now  there  you  are".^*^  Still  later,  be- 
tween "are"  and  "he"  Joyce  adds  "like  it  or  lump  it".^*^ 

Molly  makes  plans  for  the  concert:  "yes  by  God  111  get 
that  big  fan  mended".  After  "mended"  Joyce  adds  "make 
them  ["Kathleen  Kearney  and  her  lot  of  squealers"]  burst 
with  envy". 14* 

In  an  insertion  already  cited,  Molly  explains  this  whole 
side  of  her  character  by  a  generalization:  "I  suppose  its  all 
the  troubles  we  have  makes  us  so  snappy".^*^ 

One  of  the  most  important  of  Molly's  "troubles"  I  have 
reserved  for  lengthier  treatment.  Throughout  her  reverie 
runs  the  motif  of  fretting  poverty.  Directly  and  indirectly  she 
reveals  the  restrictions  which  her  husband's  improvidence 
has  placed  upon  her.  She  remembers:  "when  I  was  in  the  dbc 
with  Poldy  laughing  and  trying  to  listen  I  was  waggling  my 
foot".  After  "foot"  Joyce  adds  "we  both  ordered  2  teas  and 
plain  bread  and  butter".^*^  Somewhat  later,  she  reverts  to 
the  subject:  "always  hanging  out  of  them  for  money  in  a 
restaurant  we  have  to  be  thankful  for  our  cup  of  tea  even". 
In  manuscript,  after  "even"  Joyce  adds  "to  be  noticed''.^*"^ 
In  typescript,  the  passage  concludes  "for  our  cup  of  tea  as  a 
great  compliment  to  be  noticed",  and  before  "cup"  Joyce 
inserts  "mangy". ^^^  In  proof,  after  "restaurant"  Joyce  adds 
"for  the  bit  you  put  down  your  throat";  after  "tea",  the  be- 
httling  Anglo-Irish  "itself.^^^ 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  103 

Molly,  in  manuscript,  considers  her  wardrobe: 

and  the  four  paltry  handkerchiefs  about  6/-  in  all  sure 
you  can't  get  on  in  this  world  without  clothes  the  men 
won't  look  at  you  and  women  try  to  walk  on  you  for  the 
four  years  more  I  have  of  life  up  to  35 

Joyce  replaces  ''clothes"  with  ''style  I've  no  clothes  at  all".^^^ 
In  proof,  the  passage  has  become: 

and  the  four  paltry  handkerchiefs  about  6/-  in  all  sure 
you  can't  get  on  in  this  world  without  style  all  going  in 
food  and  rent  when  I  get  it  I'll  lash  it  around  if  I  buy  a 
pair  of  old  brogues  itself  do  you  like  new  those  new  shoes 
yes  how  much  were  they  I've  no  clothes  at  all  cutting  up 
an  old  hat  and  patching  up  the  other  the  men  won't 
look  at  you  and  women  try  to  walk  on  you  for  the  four 
years  more  I  have  of  life  up  to  35 

After  "around"  Joyce  adds  "I  tell  you  in  fine  style  I  always 
want  to  throw  a  handful  of  tea  into  the  pot  measuring  and 
mincing".^5i  In  a  later  galley,  after  "at  all"  he  adds  "the 
brown  costume  and  the  skirt  and  jacket  and  the  one  at  the 
cleaners  3  whats  that  for  any  woman".^^^  Still  later,  he  makes 
Molly  poverty-conscious  for  a  further  reason:  after  "on  you" 
in  a  third  galley  he  adds  "because  they  know  youve  no  man 
then",i^3  and  after  "then"  in  a  fourth  he  inserts  "with  all  the 
things  getting  dearer  every  day".^^^ 

When  Molly  thinks,  "I  havent  even  a  decent  nightdress", 
Joyce  emphasizes  her  irritation  by  changing  "a"  to  "one".^^^ 

Molly  feels  "some  wind  in  me  better  go  easy  not  wake  him 
have  him  at  it  again  slobbering  after  washing  every  bit  of 
myself  back  belly  and  sides".  Following  "sides"  Joyce  adds  "if 
we  had  even  a  bath  itself".^^^ 

About  menstruation  Molly  thinks:  "isnt  it  simply  sicken- 
ing that  night  it  came  on  me  like  that  the  one  time  we  were 
in  a  box  that  Michael  Gunn  gave  him".  Joyce  again  em- 
phasizes Molly's  awareness  by  adding,  after  "one",  "and 
only'.i" 


104  PRESCOTT 

Looking  back  upon  her  married  life,  Molly  observes:  *'God 
here  we  are  as  bad  as  ever  after  sixteen  years  every  time 
were  just  getting  on  right  something  happens".  After  "years" 
Joyce  points  up  the  chronic  poverty  of  the  Blooms  by  adding 
"how  many  houses  were  we  in  at  all".^^^  At  a  later  stage, 
after  "all",  he  inserts  a  travelogue  of  impecuniosity: 

Raymond  terrace  and  Ontario  terrace  and  Lombard  street 
and  Holies  street  and  he  goes  about  whistling  every  time 
were  on  the  run  again  his  huguenots  or  the  frogs  march  and 
then  the  City  Arms  hotel  worse  and  worse  says  Warden 
Daly  that  charming  place  on  the  landing  always  somebody 
inside  praying  then  leaving  all  their  stinks  after  them  al- 
ways know  who  was  in  there  last 

Then  Joyce  completes  the  account  by  adding,  after  the  newly 
introduced  "march",  "pretending  to  help  the  men  with  bur 
4  sticks  of  furniture".^^^ 

Offsetting  Molly's  personal  and  economic  frustration  is  her 
inveterate  buoyancy,  which  is  abetted  by  her  talent  for  sing- 
ing. In  revising,  Joyce  builds  up  our  awareness  of  this  aspect 
of  Molly  by  introducing  musical  associations.^^^ 

Molly  remembers:  "when  I  threw  the  penny  to  that  lame 
sailor".  In  typescript,  after  "sailor"  Joyce  adds  "for  England 
home  and  beauty".^^^  In  proof,  this  musical  association  be- 
gets another:  after  "beauty"  Joyce  adds,  appropriately, 
"when  I  was  whistling  there  is  a  charming  girl  I  love".^^^ 

Molly  told  her  first  lover  that  she  was  engaged  "to  the 
son  of  a  Spanish  nobleman  and  he  believed  that  I  was  to  be 
married  to  him  in  three  years  time  there's  many  a  true  word 
spoken  in  jest".  In  typescript,  after  "nobleman"  Joyce  adds 
"named  Don  Miguel  de  la  Flora",  and  after  "jest"  "the 
flowers  that  bloom  in  the  spring  trala".^^^  But  in  proof  he 
replaces  the  snatch  with  "there  is  a  flower  that  bloometh"  ^^"^ 
—  a  happier  association,  since  in  the  course  of  her  reverie 
Molly  recalls  two  other  airs  by  the  same  composer,  one  from 
the  same  work  as  the  air  here  added.^^^ 

Thoughts  on  poetry  evoke  a  song: 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  105 

where  softly  sighs  of  love  the  light  guitar  where  poetry  is 
in  the  air  the  blue  sea  and  the  moon  shining  so  beauti- 
fully coming  back  on  the  nightboat  from  Tarifa  the  guitar 
that  fellow  played  was  so  expressive  will  ever  go  back 
there  again  all  new  faces  two  glancing  eyes  a  lattice  hid 
ni  sing  that  for  him  [Stephen]  they're  my  eyes  if  he's  any- 
thing of  a  poet  two  eyes  as  softly  bright  as  love's  young 
star  aren't  those  beautiful  words  as  love's  young  star 

Joyce  alters  the  second  "softly"  to  "darkly"  ^^^  and,  in  a  later 
galley,  the  first  "young"  to  "own".^^^  The  reasons  for  these 
changes  are  implicit  in  the  words  of  the  song,  In  Old  Madrid, 
which  begins:  ''Long  years  ago  in  old  Madrid,  Where  softly 
sighs  of  love  the  light  guitar.  Two  sparkling  eyes,  a  lattice 
hid.  Two  eyes  as  darkly  bright  as  love's  own  star!"  ^^^  In  the 
earlier  galley,  Joyce  corrects  the  second  of  three  inac- 
curacies,^^^  a  confusion  the  source  of  which  lies  before  us; 
in  the  later  galley,  by  correcting  the  first  specimen  of  the 
third  inaccuracy,  he  causes  Molly's  mind  to  move  into  error. 

Bloom  crowds  the  bed,  and  Molly,  irritated,  breaks  out: 
"O  move  over  your  big  carcass  out  of  that  for  the  love  of 
Mike  so  well  he  may  sleep".  After  "Mike"  Joyce  adds  "listen 
to  him  the  winds  that  waft  my  sighs  to  thee".^'^^ 

Memories  of  Gibraltar  again  evoke  In  Old  Madrid.  Molly 
recalls  "those  handsome  Moors  all  in  white  like  kings  and 
the  figtrees  in  the  Alameda  gardens".  Part  of  an  insertion 
after  "kings",  as  I  have  shown  in  another  connection,  is 
"two  glancing  eyes  a  lattice  hid".^^^ 

Besides  presenting  Molly,  the  long  monologue  with  which 
Ulysses  closes  serves  another  and  multiple  characterizing 
purpose.  Through  Molly's  eyes  we  gain  new  information 
and,  more  importantly,  a  new  'slant,'  that  of  a  woman,  on 
many  of  her  fellow  characters.  Chief  among  these,  under- 
standably, is  her  husband.  As  her  reverie  unfolds,  we  see 
again,  but  this  time  through  the  eyes  of  his  faithless,  dis- 
paraging, yet  withal  devoted  wife,  many  of  the  traits  of 
Bloom  which  I  have  discussed  elsewhere.^^^  Concerning:  the 
monologue  Joyce  wrote  to  Budgen,  then  in  the  British  con- 


106  PRESCOTT 

sular  service,  "It  is  the  indispensable  countersign  to  Bloom's 
passport  to  eternity."  ^^^ 

In  revising,  Joyce  augments  the  number  of  points  at  which 
Molly's  thought  meets  our  memory  of  the  Bloom  we  have 
come  to  know  during  the  preceding  seventeen  hours.  In  the 
penultimate  episode,  between  a  list  of  instances  of  Molly's 
"deficient  mental  development"  and  a  succeeding  question 
as  to  how  Bloom  had  attempted  to  remedy  her  ignorance, 
Joyce  makes  a  preparatory  interpolation: 

What  compensated  in  the  false  balance  of  her  intelli- 
gence for  these  and  such  deficiencies  of  judgment  regard- 
ing persons,  places  and  things? 

The  false  apparent  parallelism  of  all  perpendicular  arms 
of  all  balances,  true  by  construction.  The  counterbalance 
of  her  proficiency  of  judgment  regarding  one  person, 
proved  true  by  experiment.^^* 

Who  the  person  may  be,  it  is  superfluous  to  ask.  In  the  final 
episode,  the  interpolation  is  borne  out. 

The  thrifty  temperance  which  Bloom  practiced  during  the 
day  is  echoed  in  additions.  Molly  thinks:  "he  has  sense 
enough  not  to  squander  every  penny  piece  he  earns  down 
their  gullets  goodfornothings".  After  "gullets"  Joyce  inserts 
"and  looks  after  his  wife  and  family".^^^ 

Bloom's  curiosity  inspires  additions.  Molly  considers 

a  picnic  suppose  we  all  gave  5/  each  and  or  let  him  pay  it 
and  invite  some  other  woman  for  him  who  Mrs  Fleming 
and  drove  out  to  the  furry  glen  or  the  strawberry  beds 
with  some  cold  veal  and  ham  mixed  sandwiches 

After  "beds"  Joyce  adds  "wed  have  him  examining  all  the 
horses  toenails  first  no  not  with  Boylan  there  yes".  Then, 
after  "first"  he  adds  further  "like  he  does  with  the  letters".^^^ 
One  of  Molly's  memories  of  Bloom's  courtship  reminds 
us,  in  an  insertion  already  cited,  of  his  didactic  streak:  "ex- 
plaining and  rigmaroling  about  religion  and  persecution  he 
wont  let  you  enjoy  anything  naturally". ^^^  Another  gibe  at 
this  trait  of  Bloom's  is  introduced  somewhat  later.  Molly 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  107 

has  just  expressed  her  discomfort  at  Bloom's  crowding  of  the 
bed:  "so  well  he  may  sleep  and  Im  to  be  slooching  around 
down  in  the  kitchen  to  get  his  lordship  his  breakfast".  After 
"sleep"  Joyce  adds  "and  sigh  the  great  suggester".^^^ 

The  humanitarian  in  Bloom  wins  Molly's  affection.  In 
manuscript,  Joyce  adds  the  thought  "still  I  like  that  in  him 
polite  to  old  women  like  that".^^^  In  typescript,  after  the 
second  "that"  he  inserts  "and  waiters".^^^  In  proof,  after 
"waiters"  he  introduces  "and  beggars  too  but  not  always".^^^ 
In  a  later  proof,  after  "too"  he  adds  "hes  not  proud  out  of 
nothing".^^^ 

Bloom's  mild,  unpugnacious  disposition,  so  strongly  con- 
trasted with  his  wife's,  comes  out  in  Molly's  memory  of  a 
conjugal  row:  "he  began  it  not  me  when  he  said  about  Our 
Lord  being  a  carpenter  and  the  first  socialist  still  he  knows  a 
lot  of  mixed  up  things".  After  "socialist"  Joyce  adds  "he 
annoyed  so  much  I  couldnt  put  him  into  a  temper". ^^^ 

Bloom's  considerateness,  now  directed  toward  Molly, 
elicits  her  gratitude.  She  thinks: 

anyhow  I  hope  hes  not  going  to  get  in  with  those  medicals 
leading  him  astray  to  imagine  hes  young  again  coming  in 
waking  me  up  at  2  in  the  morning  it  must  be  if  not  more 
what  do  they  find  to  gabber  about  all  night 

As  if  realizing  that  it  would  be  unlike  Bloom  to  disturb  any- 
one, Joyce  deletes  "waking  me  up",  and  following  "more" 
adds  "still  he  had  the  manners  not  to  wake  me".^^* 

After  Molly  thinks  that,  if  Bloom  should  fall  seriously 
ill,  it  would  be  better  for  him  to  go  to  a  hospital,  she  ob- 
serves: "but  I  suppose  I'd  have  to  dring  it  into  him  for  a 
month".  Following  "month"  Joyce  introduces  the  philanderer 
in  Bloom:  "yes  and  then  wed  have  a  hospital  nurse  next 
thing  on  the  carpet  or  a  nun  maybe  like  the  photo  he  has 
shes  as  much  as  Im  not".  Then  after  "carpet"  Joyce  adds 
further  "have  him  staying  there  till  they  throw  him  out"; 
before  "photo",  "smutt/'.^^s 

Like  the  narrator  of  the  Cyclops  episode,  whose  words  she 


108  PRESCOTT 

echoes/^^  Molly  considers  Bloom  a  cotquean:  "of  course  he 
prefers  plottering  about  the  house  so  you  cant  stir  with  him 
any  side  what's  your  programme  today".  After  "today"  Joyce 
adds  "I  wish  hed  even  smoke  a  pipe  like  father  to  get  the 
smell  of  a  man".^^'^ 

Bloom  is  not  man  enough  for  Molly,  not  only  on  the 
marriage  couch  and  about  the  house,  but  also  in  business. 
Thus  far,  in  the  changes  we  have  watched  Joyce  make,  Molly 
has  only  corroborated  traits  in  her  husband  which  we  al- 
ready know.  But  she  also  gives  us  a  new  view  of  the  "great 
Suggester"  as  a  chronic  bungler.  Shortly  after  the  thought 
"I  hate  an  unlucky  man"  Molly  considers  that  Boylan  "must 
have  been  a  bit  late  because  it  was  %  after  3  when  I  saw  the 
2  Dedalus  girls  coming  from  school".  After  "school"  Joyce 
adds  "I  never  know  the  time  even  that  watch  he  [Bloom] 
gave  me  never  seems  to  go  properly  Id  want  to  get  it  looked 
after".i88 

Molly  lacks  confidence  in  Bloom  as  an  agent:  "I  told  him 
get  that  [face  lotion]  made  up  in  the  same  place  and  dont 
forget  it  God  only  knows  whether  he  did  111  know  by  the 
bottle  anyway".  After  "did"  Joyce  adds  "after  all  I  said  to 
him".  ^^^  Later,  Joyce  goes  back  to  prepare  for  this  change 
by  inserting,  after  "told  him",  "over  and  over  again".^^^ 

Again,  through  Molly's  eyes  we  see  the  Bloom  who  is 
full  of  business  schemes  that  never  come  off:  "musical 
academy  he  was  going  to  make  like  all  the  things  he  told 
father  he  was  going  to  do  and  me  but  I  saw  through  him". 
In  manuscript,  after  "make"  Joyce  inserts  "on  the  first  floor 
drawingroom  with  a  brassplate".^^^  In  proof,  after  "brass- 
plate"  he  adds  "or  Blooms  private  hotel  he  suggested". ^^^  In 
a  later  proof,  after  "suggested"  he  adds  further  "go  and  ruin 
himself  altogether  the  way  his  father  did  down  in  Ennis".^^^ 

Molly  is  considering  the  possibility  of  an  affair  with 
Stephen: 

itll  be  a  change  the  Lord  knows  to  have  an  intelligent 
person  to  talk  to  about  yourself  not  always  hstening  to 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  109 

him  and  Billy  Prescotts  ad  and  Keyess  ad  and  Tom  the 
Devils  ad  Im  sure  hes  very  distinguished 

After  the  last  ''ad"  Joyce  inserts  a  generalization  which  Molly 
may  claim  is  based  upon  experience:  "then  if  anything  goes 
wrong  in  their  business  we  have  to  suffer". ^^* 

Joyce  does  not  allow  us  to  forget  that  no  character  knows 
Bloom  as  thoroughly  as  does  his  wife.  She  thinks:  ''when  hes 
hke  that  he  cant  keep  a  thing  back".  After  "back"  Joyce  in- 
serts "I  know  every  turn  in  him".^^^ 

Molly,  as  I  have  said,  gives  us  her  view  of  other  characters 
as  well  as  of  her  husband.  She  recalls  a  former  confessor: 

when  I  used  to  go  to  Father  Corrigan  he  touched  me 
father  and  what  harm  if  he  did  where  and  I  said  on  the 
canal  bank  hke  a  fool  but  whereabouts  on  your  person 
on  the  leg  behind  high  up  was  it  yes  rather  high  up  was  it 
where  you  sit  down  yes  O  Lord  couldnt  he  say  bottom 
right  out  and  have  done  with  it  what  has  that  got  to  do  with 
it  and  did  you  whatever  way  he  put  it  I  forget  no  father  and 
I  always  think  of  the  real  father  what  did  he  want  to  know 
for  when  I  already  confessed  it  to  God  he  had  a  nice  fat 
hand  the  palm  moist  always  I  wouldn't  mind  feeling  it 
neither  would  he  Id  say  by  his  bullneck  in  his  horsecollar 

Then,  as  in  the  case  of  Father  Conmee,  Joyce  introduces 
the  priestly  aura,  by  adding,  after  "person",  "my  child".^^^ 
The  thought  of  Lenehan  evokes  a  memory: 

that  sponger  he  was  making  free  with  me  after  the  Glen- 
cree  dinner  coming  back  that  long  joult  over  the  feather- 
bed mountain  I  first  noticed  him  at  dessert  when  I  was 
cracking  the  nuts  with  my  teeth 

After  "mountain"  Joyce  inserts  "after  the  lord  Mayor  look- 
ing at  me  with  his  dirty  eyes  Val  Dillon".!^^  And  later,  after 
"Dillon"  he  adds  "that  big  heathen".i98 

Following  Molly's  thought  of  Dignam  as  a  "comical  little 
teetotum",  Joyce  inserts  "always  stuck  up  in  some  pub 
corner  and  her  or  her  son  waiting  Bill  Bailey  won't  you  please 
come  home  what  men".^^^ 


no  PRESCOTT 

Yet,  despite  the  importance  of  Molly's  reverie  to  the 
totality  of  our  conception  of  her  fellow  characters,  ''it  is  ab- 
surd," as  one  critic  has  written,  ''to  take  the  .  .  .  final  chap- 
ter as  a  submission  of  the  whole  narrative  to  Molly's  .  .  . 
stream  of  consciousness.  We  as  readers  do  the  summing  up, 
surely,  even  if  we  do  it  with  the  aid  of  her  necessary  final 
information."  ^oo 


III 


Joyce's  revisions  represent  almost  exclusively  a  process  of 
elaboration.  Great  numbers  of  additions  gravitate  into  pat- 
terned constellations  of  purpose  and  method,  and  innumera- 
ble details,  in  the  final  text  as  well  as  in  the  additions,  be- 
come luminous  with  meaning. 

In  improving  upon  his  characters,  Joyce  evinces  a  hundred- 
eyed  alertness  to  the  possibilities  of  fuller  and  more  im- 
mediate realization. 

Upon  Molly  Bloom,  his  second  great,  and  his  concluding, 
creation  in  Ulysses^  Joyce  lavishes  effort,  successfully,  to  pro- 
duce a  portrait  of  the  eternal  feminine.  Her  physique,  her 
sexuality,  her  acceptance  of  the  body,  her  ambivalent  atti- 
tude toward  the  male,  her  technique  of  attraction,  the 
femininity  of  her  mind,  her  perceptiveness  in  sexual  matters  — 
all  these  are  steadily  built  up.  Being,  besides  Woman,  a 
woman,  Molly  grows  in  the  process  of  revision  as  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  soldier;  as  one  whose  mind  is  partly  Spanish  in  con- 
tent; whose  intellectual  equipment,  as  her  beliefs  and  her 
use  of  language  indicate,  is  limited;  whose  short  temper, 
further  abbreviated  by  poverty,  is  offset  by  a  buoyancy  which 
is  abetted  by  her  talent  for  singing;  whose  views  on  her 
fellow  characters,  her  husband  in  particular,  serve  to  round 
out  our  conception  of  the  microcosm  that  was  Dublin  on 
June  16,  1904. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  iii 

Briefly,  the  revisions  afford  a  direct  view  into  the  mind  of 
Joyce  in  the  process  of  creation.  This  insight,  fascinating  in 
itself  as  an  adventure  in  psychological  analysis,  yields  two 
contributions  of  critical  importance.  By  making  us  aware  of 
fresh  and  dominant  relationships,  it  enables  us  to  effect  a 
fuller  synthesis  in  our  apprehension  of  the  finished  work  of 
art.  By  making  clearer  the  kinship  of  that  work  with  Joyce's 
earlier  and  later  works,  it  enables  us  to  appraise  more  justly 
Joyce's  total  achievement. 

ABBREVIATIONS 

Editions  of  Ulysses 

s  UlysseSy  Paris,  Shakespeare  and  Co.,  February,  1922. 

The  first  edition,  set  up  from  the  proof  sheets  treated 
in  the  present  study. 

EP  Ulysses,  published  for  The  Egoist  Press,  London,  by 
John  Rodker,  Paris,  October,  1922.  All  citations  from 
this  the  first  English  edition  (struck  off  from  the 
original  plates)  take  account  of  the  seven  pages  of 
errata  laid  in. 

S4  Ulysses,  Paris,  Shakespeare  and  Co.,  fourth  printing, 
January,  1924.  All  citations  from  this  edition  take  ac- 
count of  the  list  of  "Additional  corrections"  on  pp. 
733-36. 

s6  Ulysses,  Paris,  Shakespeare  and  Co.,  sixth  printing, 
August,  1925.  All  citations  from  this  edition  take  ac- 
count of  the  hst  of  "Additional  corrections"  on  pp. 
733-36.  Both  the  text  and  the  list,  in  all  passages  for 
which  I  cite  this  edition,  are  identical  with  those  of  54. 

S9  Ulysses,  Paris,  Shakespeare  and  Co.,  ninth  printing, 
May,  1927.  This  edition  follows  that  of  May,  1926,  for 
which  the  type  was  entirely  reset.  The  "Additional 
corrections"  mentioned  under  54  and  s6  were,  with 
some  exceptions,  incorporated. 


112  PRESCOTT 

U  UlysseSj  New  York,  Random  House,  sixth  printing, 
February,  1934.  This  edition  is  based  upon  a  corrupt 
pirated  text.  The  pubhshers  included  it  in  the  Mod- 
ern Library  —  after  the  exposure  of  their  mistake. 
Since,  however,  it  is  the  only  edition  generally  availa- 
ble to  American  readers,  I  am  compelled  to  use  it  for 
citation  from  the  final  text.  Whenever,  in  collating 
editions,  I  mention  U,  I  do  so  for  the  convenience  of 
the  reader,  not  for  authority.  [N.B.  The  1961  printing, 
which  describes  itself  as  a  "new  edition,  corrected 
AND  RESET,"  appeared  too  late  for  consideration 
here.] 

In  citing  from  Ulysses,  whatever  the  edition,  for  the 
sake  of  complete  accuracy,  I  give  all  opening  and 
closing  punctuation  marks  as  in  the  text  quoted  and 
place  outside  the  quotations  all  opening  and  closing 
punctuation  marks  that  are  mine.  In  citing  the  Ran- 
dom House  edition,  I  refer  to  it  as  U,  following  it 
directly  with  the  page  number,  e.g.,  U5. 

OP  Ulysses,  2  vols.,  Hamburg-Paris-Bologna,  Odyssey 
Press,  third  impression,  August,  1935.  The  first  im- 
pression of  this  edition  called  itself  the  "definitive 
standard  edition  .  .  .  specially  revised,  at  the  author's 
request,  by  Stuart  Gilberts  In  the  second  impression, 
the  text  was  made  more  accurate.  For  the  superiority 
of  the  third  impression  to  the  first  two,  see  J.  F. 
Spoerri,  "The  Odyssey  Press  Edition  of  James  Joyce's 
'Ulysses,' "  Papers  of  the  Bibliographical  Society  of 
America,  l  (Second  Quarter,  1956),  195-98. 

I  owe  some  of  the  information  used  above  to  R.  F.  Roberts, 
"Bibliographical  Notes  on  James  Joyce's  'Ulysses,' "  Colo- 
phon, New  Series,  i  (Spring,  1936),  565-79. 

Manuscript  and  Other  Materials 

B  Manuscripts  of  parts  of  Ulysses  exhibited  at  the 
Librairie  La  Hune,  Paris,  in  1949  and  acquired  by  the 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  113 

Lockwood  Memorial  Library  of  the  University  of  Buf- 
falo. Numbers  following  the  symbol  b  will  refer  to 
entries  in  the  La  Hune  catalogue  James  Joyce:  sa  vie, 
son  oeuvre,  son  rayonnement  (Paris,  1949),  items  252- 
53,  255-59.  (Item  254  was  reportedly  lost  in  transit 
between  Paris  and  Buffalo.)  These  manuscripts  are 
also  described  in  John  }.  Slocum  and  Herbert  Gaboon, 
A  Bibliography  of  James  Joyce  [1882-ig^i]  (New 
Haven,  1953),  E5b. 

H  Proof  sheets  of  Ulysses  described  by  Slocum  and  Ga- 
boon, E5f,  quoting  the  private  catalogue  of  Edward 
W.  Titus  as  follows:  ''Gomplete  and  final  proofs  of 
the  first  edition  of  this  stupendous  work  with  the 
author's  profuse  autograph  corrections,  emendations 
and  additions  exceeding  sometimes  160  words  on  a 
single  page.  These  important  additions  are  not  found 
in  the  manuscript  of  the  work,  that  had  been  the 
sensation  of  the  memorable  Quinn  Sale  in  1924." 
Made  available  to  me  by  Mr.  T.  E.  Hanley  and  now 
in  the  University  of  Texas  Library. 

I  Miles  L.  Hanley  and  others.  Word  Index  to  James 

Joyce's  Ulysses  (Madison,  Wisconsin,  1937).  A  hst  of 
"Errata  in  Random  House  Edition"  occurs  on  pp. 
xiii-xix. 

R  Manuscript  of  Ulysses  made  available  to  me  by  the 
late  A.  S.  W.  Rosenbach  and  now  in  the  Rosenbach 
Foundation.  Described  in  Slocum  and  Gaboon,  E5a, 
quoting  the  catalogue  of  the  Quinn  sale,  no.  4936: 
''Original  autograph  manuscript  of  'Ulysses,'  written 
on  over  1200  pages."  —  etc. 

v^  Proof  sheets  of  Ulysses  made  available  to  me  by  Miss 
Marian  G.  Willard  and  now  in  the  Houghton  Library' 
of  Harvard  University.  Miss  Sylvia  Beach,  publisher  of 
the  first  edition  of  Ulysses,  has  described  this  material 


114  PRESCOTT 

as  follows:  "A  complete  set,  and  several  incomplete 
sets  of  the  proofs  abundantly  corrected  and  added  to 
by  the  author.  About  600  pages  contain  5  to  10  lines 
of  autograph  corrections,  others  are  almost  completely 
covered  with  manuscript. 

"These  proofs  show  the  important  changes  that 
James  Joyces  [sic]  made  in  his  <  Ulysses  >  while  it  was 
printing,  and  his  manner  of  continually  adding  text 
to  successive  sets  of  proofs  up  to  the  very  moment 
before  going  to  press."  —  Catalogue  of  a  Collection 
Containing  Manuscripts  d*  Rare  Editions  of  James 
Joyce  .  .  .  (Paris,  1935),  p.  3. 

Miss  Willard  numbered  the  galleys  from  1  to  212. 
The  pagination  of  the  galleys  underwent  so  many 
changes  that  it  seems  best  to  refer  to  the  pages  of 
each  galley  by  a  fresh  count.  A  specimen  reference 
follows:  wi87:4  indicates  galley  numbered  187, 
fourth  page. 


NOTES 

1.  Herbert  Gorman,  James  Joyce  [New  York,  1948],  p.  281, 
n.  1.  For  more  on  models  for  Molly,  see  Richard  Ellmann,  James 
Joyce  (New  York,  1959),  pp.  353,  386-89. 

2.  U63. 

3.  Cf.  U64:  "The  same  young  eyes."  (echoed,  after  a  'Span- 
ish' thought,  on  p.  375:  ''sehorita  young  eyes");  p.  273:  "Big 
Spanishy  eyes.";  p.  367:  "That's  where  Molly  can  knock  spots 
off  them.  It  is  the  blood  of  the  south.  Moorish.  Also  the  form, 
the  figure.";  p.  371:  "Moorish  eyes.";  p.  748:  "Ive  my  mothers 
eyes  and  figure  anyhow  he  always  said"  (part  of  an  addition 
in  h). 

4.  U222. 

5.  Cf.  U273:  "Her  wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevy  hair";  p.  375: 
"black  hair". 

6.  Cf.  U91:  "Body  getting  a  bit  softy.  .  .  .  But  the  shape  is 
there.  The  shape  is  there  still.  Shoulders.  Hips.  Plump." 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  115 

7.  Cf.  U715:  "a  pair  of  outsize  ladies'  drawers  of  India  mull, 
cut  on  generous  lines/'. 

8.  Cf.  U621:  "She  has  the  Spanish  type.  Quite  dark,  regular 
brunette,  black." 

9.  U636.  10.  U83;  W2i:7.  11.  U365;  wio5:7. 

12.  U728-29;  wi84:5. 

13.  U740-41;  wi87:6-7. 

14.  Frank  Budgen,  James  Joyce  and  the  Making  of  ulysses 
(New  York,  1934),  p.  266. 

15.  U730;  wi84:6.  16.  U756;  W202:2. 

17.  U756;  W20o:2.  The  present  addition  and  the  last  one 
were  probably  inspired  by  the  "only  natural  weakness"  which 
precedes  them  on  the  same  page. 

18.  U762;  W20o:7.  The  present  addition  is  introduced 
shortly  after  "it  didnt  make  me  blush  why  should  it  either  its 
only  nature"  (p.  762)  and  shortly  before  "after  that  hed  kiss 
anything  unnatural"  (ibid.). 

In  wi96:8  Joyce  adds  "as  if  the  one  nature  gave  wasnt  enough 
for  anybody"  (U753). 

19.  U725;  wi82:3. 

20.  U736;  wi9i:3.  U's  "any  any  fool"  is  an  erratum;  cf.  h, 

S,  OP. 

21.  U765;  W204:8.  He  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  W202:8. 

22.  U757;  W2oo:3.  Then  Joyce  changes  "they  havent  pocket" 
to  "all  their  20  pockets  aren't"  (for  comment,  see  below,  n.  68), 
and  after  "them"  he  adds  "even".  (He  deletes  the  apostrophe 
in  H.) 

I  corrects  U's  "I'll  to  "111."  Cf.  h,  s,  op. 

23.  U759;  W202:4.  For  an  addition  made  after  "not  good  of 
me"  in  W20o:5,  see  above,  p.  90. 

24.  U727;  wi84:4.  The  rest  of  the  text  is  built  up  in  wi85:5. 

25.  U734;  wi92:2.  He  also  deletes  the  apostrophe. 

26.  U739;  wi  87 15-6.  The  record  of  Molly's  recent  desire  is 
also  further  testimony  regarding  her  technique.  At  least  once 
before  Molly  had  given  her  eyes  "that  look",  with  far-reaching 
consequences.  Cf.  U173:  "Flowers  her  eyes  were,  take  me,  will- 
ing eyes.";  p.  768:  "then  I  asked  him  with  my  eyes  to  ask  again". 

27.  U758;  W20i:3.  He  also  deletes  the  apostrophes. 

28.  W203:3.  29.  U764;  W202:7.  30.  h. 


ii6 


PRESCOTT 


31.  U725;  R.  Joyce  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  wi84:3. 

32.  Made  available  to  me  by  Mr.  R.  F.  Roberts.  To  be  re- 
ferred to  hereafter  as  Roberts  typescript. 

33.  wi84:3.  In  wi85:3  Joyce  inserts  *ld"  before  "let". 

34.  U728;  R.  In  wi85:5  he  changes  "one"  to  "1"  and  deletes 
the  apostrophe  in  "we'll". 

35.  wi82:5.  36.  H.  37.  U728;  wi83:5. 
38.  U730;  Roberts  typescript.  39.  h. 

40.  U741;  wi87:7.  He  also  uncapitalizes  "Shadow".  In  h 
he  deletes  the  apostrophe. 

For  more  of  Molly's  strategy  in  winning  Bloom,  see  especially 
her  account  of  his  proposal  (U767-68). 

41.  U755;  W20i:i.  42.  W200:i. 

43.  H.  Joyce  added  "where  he  oughtnt  to  be"  between  "busy" 
and  "he"  in  W202:i. 

U's  omission  of  "he"  between  "be"  and  "never"  is  an  er- 
ratum. Cf.  H,  S,  OP. 

44.  U761;  W20o:6.  Then,  after  "bit"  Joyce  adds  further  "off". 

45.  U748;  R.  Following  "used  to  be",  he  adds,  as  an  after- 
thought, "there  the  whole  time". 

He  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  wi97:4. 

46.  U749;  wi()'^:^.  47.  U748;  wi97:4. 

48.  U758;  vv^202:3.  Originally,  the  insertion  was  made  after 
"songs"  and  read  "and  her  lowneck  dress  as  she  cant  attract 
them  any  other  way".  Then  Joyce  moved  the  addition  to  its 
present  place  after  "green  dress",  changing  "and  her  lowneck 
dress"  to  "with  the  lowneck".  As  a  result,  Mrs.  M'Coy's  ward- 
robe is  reduced  to  a  single  unattractive  garment  —  and  Molly's 
derogation  is  complete. 

49.  U746;  wi96:2.  Then,  before  the  newly  added  "she" 
Joyce  inserts  "and  is  quite  changed  they  all  do  they  havent  half 
the  character  a  woman  has". 

U's  "Blackwater"  is  an  erratum.  Cf.  Roberts  typescript,  h, 

S,  OP. 

50.  H. 

51.  U761;  W2oo:6.  Here,  also,  after  "all  over  him"  Joyce 
adds  "till  he  half  faints  under  me";  after  "with  our",  "2". 

52.  U715;  wi65:6.  Apparently  Joyce  overlooked  the  repeti- 
tion created  by  his  failure  to  delete  "blue"  in  the  original  ver- 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  1 1 7 

sion  before  introducing  the  new  text;  he  makes  the  deletion  in 
wi67:6. 

53.  U761.  54.  U734;  R.  55.  wi9i:2. 

56.  U740;  wi9i:6.  He  capitaHzes  ''bull"  in  wi9o:6. 

U's  "banderillos"  is  an  erratum;  Joyce  added  "banderilleros" 
in  wi87:6. 

57.  U741;  Roberts  typescript.  Joyce  capitahzes  "gorgeous"  in 
wi9o:7. 

58.  wi9i:7.  59.  U745;  wi95:2. 

60.  U759;  W20o:5.  The  passage  I  cite,  before  the  present 
change,  was  part  of  an  addition  to  W202:4  discussed  above,  pp. 

84-85. 

For  more  of  Molly's  thoughts  on  clothes,  and  additions  to 
them,  see  above,  p.  103,  and  below,  n.  199.  Note  also  the  in- 
fluence of  Molly's  interest  in  clothes  upon  her  use  of  metaphor: 
''not  to  be  always  and  ever  wearing  the  same  old  hat"  (p.  725); 
"off  her  head  with  my  castoffs"  (p.  758). 

61.  U723;  wi83:i.  U's  "I'll"  is  an  erratum;  cf.  op,  i. 

62.  U725;  Roberts  typescript. 

63.  w  184 13.  He  also  deletes  the  apostrophe.  In  wi85:3  he 
deletes  the  final  letter  of  "sometimes". 

64.  U727;  wi84:4.  In  wi85:5  he  changes  "of"  to  "off"  (the 
reading  of  R  and  Roberts  typescript). 

U's  "don't"  is  an  erratum;  Joyce  deleted  the  apostrophe  in 
wi82:4. 

65.  U739;  H.  66.  U766;  W2i2:i. 

67.  W2o8:2. 

68.  U766;  w2o8:2.  Another  addition  to  the  femininity  of 
Molly's  thought  occurs  in  a  context  already  cited  (above,  p.  84). 
In  the  inserted  phrase  "deceitful  men  they  havent  pocket  enough 
for  their  lies",  Joyce  gives  the  thought  a  peculiarly  feminine 
twist  by  altering  "they  havent  pocket"  to  "all  their  20  pockets 
aren't"  (U757;  w2oo:3;  he  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  h). 

69.  U747.  70.  U723;  wi84:i.  71.  H. 

72.  U726;  wi79:3.  For  a  later  version  of  this  passage,  see 
above,  p.  109. 

73.  U727;  R. 

74.  wi84:4.  After  "dozen"  he  adds  "he  was  in  great  singing 
voice".  He  supplies  "eaten"  after  "have"  in  h. 


Il8  PRESCOTT 

75.  U728;    R. 

76.  wi79:5.  Here,  also,  after  *'that"  Joyce  adds  "putting  it 
on  thick";  and  after  "spoils"  he  restores  a  manuscript  reading 
(r)  by  altering  "them"  (also  in  Roberts  typescript)  to  "him". 
The  "and"  before  "did"  is  gone  in  the  typescript. 

Joyce  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  wi84:5. 

77.  wi82:5.  78.  U736;  R. 

79.  wi9o:3.  Joyce  had  substituted  "this"  for  "an"  in  wi87:3. 
The  rest  of  the  text  is  built  up  in  wi9i:3  and  wi92:3. 

Two  additions  to  Molly's  insight  into  sex  have  been  men- 
tioned in  other  connections:  "seduce  him  I  know  what  boys 
feel  with  that  down  on  their  cheek"  (above,  p.  86)  and  "with 
the  lowneck  as  she  cant  attract  them  any  other  way"  (above, 
p.  88). 

80.  U733;  wi87:i.  He  also  deletes  the  comma  after  "Bn". 

81.  See  [W.]  Burdett-Coutts,  The  Sick  and  Wounded  in 
South  Africa  (London,  etc.,  1900). 

82.  U734;  wi92:i.  In  H  Joyce  changes  "mad"  to  "bad". 
The  historical  fever  is  again  introduced,  for  consistency,  when 

Molly  thinks  about  "Gardner  going  to  South  Africa  where  those 
Boers  killed  him".  After  "him"  Joyce  inserts  "with  their  war  and 
fever"  (U747;  wi97:3). 

83.  Note  also  Molly's  admiring  "Im  sure  he  was  brave  too" 
(U734;  part  of  an  addition  in  Roberts  typescript). 

84.  U747;  wi94:3.  Here,  also,  after  "dead"  Joyce  adds  "off 
their  feet".  (For  comment,  see  below,  n.  120.)  The  rest  of  the 
text  is  built  up  in  wi96:3  and  h. 

85.  Straightforward  military  expressions  occur  frequently  in 
Molly's  thought.  Her  personal  idiom  reflects  military  influence 
on  p.  750:  "this  big  barracks  of  a  place". 

86.  U758;  W20i:3.  The  phrase  "skirt  duty"  was  added  in 
another  passage  and  then  eliminated.  After  Molly's  thought 
"and  that  dyinglooking  one",  Joyce  inserted  "that  used  to  be 
doing  skirt  duty  along  the  south  circular"  (U723;  wi79:i). 
Subsequently,  he  replaced  "that  used  to  be  doing  skirt  duty 
along"  with  "off"  (wi84:i). 

Another  contribution  to  Molly's  military  expression  is  "a 
squad  of  them  [children]"  (U727),  part  of  an  addition  in 
wi85:5. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  119 

87.  U149;  W47:2.  The  omission  of  the  period  after  "Spain" 
is  Joyce's. 

88.  U737;  H.  mirada  =  'look.' 

89.  U743;  wi92:8.  pisto  =  'fowl  juice  for  the  sick;  dish  of 
tomatoes  and  red  pepper';  madrileno  =  'Madrilenian.' 

90.  L^745;  wi98:2.  {embarazada  =  'pregnant.')  In  point  of 
time,  this  addition  precedes  the  last,  as  changes  made  in  W198 
are  incorporated  in  W195,  which  is  dated  "17  novembre  1921," 
whereas  W192  is  dated  "25  novemb  [sic]  1921." 

In  H,  after  "him"  Joyce  adds  "he  was  awfully  put  out  first". 

91.  U762;  W2oo:7.  {coronado  =  'cuckolded.')  Another 
change  made  here  was  discussed  above,  p.  84. 

92.  U762;  W203:6.  Molly  Englishes  a  Spanish  expression  of 
courtesy  and  respect,  besar  los  pies  ('to  kiss  the  feet'). 

93.  U767-68;  W2io:2.  Rondel  = 'night  patrol.' 

94.  W2ii:2  (posadas  =  'inns.')  The  rest  of  the  text  is  built 
up  in  W2io:2,  W2ii:2,  W2i2:2,  w2o8: 3  —  chronologically  or- 
dered —  and  H. 

95.  Stuart  Gilbert,  fames  Joyce* s  ulysses:  A  Study  (New 
York,  1952),  p.  390,  n.  1.  Spanish  additions  mentioned  in  other 
connections  are  "Majestad"  (above,  p.  98)  and  "Don  Poldo 
de  la  Flora"  (below,  n.  100). 

96.  U747;  wi95:3.  The  guide  line  from  the  marginal  addition 
to  its  intended  place  in  the  text  ran  through  "still  it",  and  the 
compositor  apparently  assumed  that  Joyce  intended  a  deletion, 
for  wi96:3,  in  which  the  addition  is  incorporated,  has  lost  "still 
it". 

Joyce  introduced  "carrot"  —  presumably  Molly's  conception 
of  the  word  —  as  part  of  an  addition  in  r,  and  the  spelling  is 
maintained  in  the  Roberts  typescript,  wi94-wi99(:3),  and  h. 

s,  OP,  U:  "pearl  must",  "carat". 

97.  U755;  W204:i.  F.  B.  Dresslar,  Superstition  and  Educa- 
tion (Berkeley,  1907),  p.  14,  lists  three  superstitions  concerning 
bubbles  on  liquids  as  a  sign  of  money.  Molly  seems  to  extend 
the  scope  of  the  belief,  for  Dresslar  mentions  only  tea  and  coffee. 

98.  U760;  w2oo:5.  Then,  after  "7th"  Joyce  adds  "card".  In  h, 
"journey"  appears  with  a  capital,  and  after  "ves  wait  yes"  Joyce 
introduces  "hold  on"  —  commented  on  in  "Stylistic  Realism  in 
Joyce's  Ulysses/*  A  James  Joyce  Miscellany:  Second  Series,  p.  40. 


120  PRESCOTT 

99.  U761;  W200:6. 

100.  U763;  W2oo:8.  Then,  after  "cards"  Joyce  adds  "this 
morning  hed  have  something  to  sigh  for".  Here,  also,  he  capi- 
tahzes  "suggester".  The  rest  of  the  text  —  which  includes  "Don 
Poldo  de  la  Flora",  another  bit  of  Spanish  — is  introduced  in 

H. 

For  an  earlier  version  of  this  passage,  see  above,  p.  107. 

101.  U726;  Roberts  typescript.  Joyce  deletes  the  apostrophe 
in  wi84:4. 

To  Molly's  mind  religion  brings  luck  even  as  a  ring  does.  See 
above,  p.  95. 

102.  U726;  wi79:4.  On  a  separate  line  in  the  marginal  ad- 
dition, "us"  v^'as  apparently  overlooked  by  the  compositor,  for 
wi8i:4  and  v\^i82:4,  in  which  the  addition  is  incorporated,  lack 
the  word. 

103.  U767;  W2o8:3.  Further  superstition  is  introduced  in 
Molly's  memory  of  a  scene  with  her  daughter,  discussed  above, 
p.  101. 

104.  U726;  Roberts  typescript.  105.  U758;  v^203:3. 

106.  U761;  W204:5.  He  also  deletes  the  apostrophe.  For 
earlier  citation,  see  above,  p.  89. 

107.  W200:6.  Another  addition  to  Molly's  incorrect  usage  was 
presented  in  the  discussion  of  her  superstitiousness:  "I  hope 
theyre  bubbles  on  it  for  a  wad  of  money  from  some  fellow".  (See 
above,  p.  95. 

108.  U670.  109.  U743;  R. 

110.  wi87:8.  In  wi89:8  the  passage  reads  "your  sad  bereave- 
ment symp=athy  I  always  make  that  mistake  and  newphew  with 
yous  yous  in".  Joyce  underscores  "newphew"  and  writes  a  mar- 
ginal "X".  v^i92:8  reads  "symphathy",  and  Joyce  substitutes  "2" 
for  the  first  "yous".  In  h  he  restores  "double"  before  the  remain- 
ing "yous". 

111.  U's  "sympathy"  (corrected  to  "symphathy"  by  I)  and 
"newphew"  fail  entirely  to  render  the  process. 

H,  s,  op:  "symphathy",  "newphew". 

112.  U743;  R. 

113.  wi9o:8.  The  final  text  is  achieved  in  h. 

114.  U744;  wi95:i.  (Italics  mine.)  Then,  after  "going  by 
with"  Joyce  adds  further  "the  bell  bringing"  —  commented  on  in 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  121 

''Stylistic  Realism  in  Joyce's  Ulysses/'  A  James  Joyce  Miscellany: 
Second  Series,  p.  28.  The  rest  of  the  text  is  added  in  wi94:i, 
wi96:i,  and  h. 

115.  U751;  wi94:6. 

116.  wi96:6.  This  proof  reads  "skerry's",  and  Joyce  deletes 
the  apostrophe.  In  h  he  corrects  a  corrupt  "all's"  to  "all  Is".  Un- 
fortunately, the  compositor  appears  to  have  acted  on  the  "X" 
deleting  "  's"  but  not  on  the  last  part  of  the  marginal  notation 
"X  Is". 

H,  s:  "skerrys";  op,  U:  "Skerrys". 

s,  EP,  S4,  s6,  59,  OP,  U;  "getting  all  at  school". 

117.  See  above,  p.  90.  118.  U734;  wi92:2. 

119.  U754;  W203:i. 

120.  U754-55;  W20o:i.  He  also  changes  "watch"  to  "see". 
Another  addition  to  Molly's  colloquialism  is  made  in  a  passage 

already  cited:  "theyd  die  down  dead"  becomes  "theyd  die  down 
dead  off  their  feet"  (see  above,  n.  84). 

121.  U737;  R.  The  English  Dialect  Dictionary  defines  plouter, 
of  which  plotter  is  a  variant,  as  follows:  "2.  ...  to  trifle, 
dawdle,  linger." 

U's  "pottering  is  an  erratum.  Cf.  above,  p.  108;  h,  s,  op. 

122.  U747;  wi97:3.  (Italics  mine.)  He  also  deletes  the 
apostrophe  and  reverses  the  sequence  of  "they  ever". 

P.  W.  Joyce,  English  as  We  Speak  It  in  Ireland  (London  & 
Dublin,  1910),  p.  325,  defines  skit  as  follows:  "to  laugh  and 
giggle  in  a  silly  way." 

For  a  discussion  of  the  context  of  the  present  addition  in  a 
later  stage,  see  above,  pp.  92-93. 

123.  U755;  W2oi:i.  The  EDD  defines  scoot  (v.^),  of  which 
scout  is  a  variant,  as  follows:  "1.  v.  To  eject  liquid  forcibly;  to 
squirt." 

124.  U756;  W20o:2.  P.  W.  Joyce,  p.  336,  defines  strap  as 
follows:  "a  bold  forward  girl  or  woman;  the  word  often  conveys 
a  sense  slightly  leaning  towards  lightness  of  character." 

125.  U765;  W2o8:i.  The  EDD  defines  handrunning  (under 
hand  [1.  sb.])  thus:  "consecutively,  continuously,  in  uninter- 
rupted succession." 

Other  dialect  terms  introduced  in  r  follow:  U723:  "dring"; 
724:  "babbyface";  728:  "glauming"  (as  noted  above,  pp.  91- 


122  PRESCOTT 

92);  731:  "dreeping";  734:  "scrooching";  749:  "lecking".  In  the 
Roberts  typescript,  the  following  terms  are  added:  U731: 
"skeezing";  741:  "taittering" 

Besides  dialect  words,  Molly  employs  many  dialect  locutions: 
"the  day  .  .  .  Goodwin  called  .  .  .  and  I  just  after  dinner  all 
flushed  and  tossed  with  boiling  old  stew"  (U732  —  "and  I"  etc. 
added  in  Roberts  typescript)  —regarding  this  construction  (also 
used  on  pp.  734  [twice:  first  passage  added  in  Roberts  type- 
script; second,  in  r],  737,  740  [twice:  second  passage  added  in 
h],  742  [added  in  h],  748  [added  in  r],  752,  767),  see  P.  W. 
Joyce,  pp.  33-35;  "sure  you  cant  get  on  in  this  world  without 
style"  (U736)  —regarding  this  construction  (also  used  on  pp. 
736  [a  second  example,  added  in  r],  737  [added  in  r],  740 
[added  in  wi87:6],  763),  see  P.  W.  Joyce,  pp.  338-39;  "he 
never  can  explain  a  thing  simply  the  way  a  body  can  understand" 
(U738)  —  regarding  Anglo-Irish  "the  way"  ('in  order  that'),  see 
P.  W.  Joyce,  p.  36. 

Two  other  Hibernicisms  added  in  revision  follow:  (1)  "if 
we  had  even  a  bath  itself"  (presented  above,  p.  103) .  Cf.  Molly's 
"if  we  I  buy  a  pair  of  brogues  itself"  (U736).  Regarding  the 
Anglo-Irish  itself  ('even'),  see  P.  W.  Joyce,  pp.  36-37.  (2)  "you 
couldnt  hear  your  ears"  (U727;  ^^185:5).  Cf.  P.  W.  Joyce,  p. 
201:  "An  odd  expression:  —  'You  are  making  such  noise  that  I 
can't  hear  my  ears.'  " 

126.  1/725;  wi82:2.  The  apostrophe,  deleted  in  wi84:2, 
persists  in  wi85:3,  a  later  galley,  and  is  deleted  again  in  h. 

127.  U733;  R. 

128.  wi87:i.  s,  U;  "there'll";  op:  "therell". 

129.  U757;  W20o:3. 

130.  U742-43;  vv^i9o:8.  He  also  changes  the  second  "put" 
to  "print". 

This  passage  provides  additions  to  Molly's  technique  of  attrac- 
tion beyond  those  treated  above,  pp.  86  ff . 

131.  wi92:8.  The  rest  of  the  text  is  introduced  in  h. 

Two  further  additions  to  Molly's  peevishness  have  been  dis- 
cussed in  another  connection:  "the  fat  lot"  and  "Jamesy" 
(above,  p.  98). 

132.  U735;  wi92:2.  His  intention  was  evidently  misunder- 
stood, as  H  reads  "make  that  one  made  them"  and  Joyce  deletes 
"made  them." 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  123 

He  appears  to  have  altered  "Sparrows"  to  "Lewers"  between 
H  and  publication. 

Note  that  he  has  also  confused  Molly's  tenses.  In  h  he 
changes  "make"  to  "made"  —  still  more  confusion  of  tenses. 

133.  U753;  R.  134.  wigSiy.  s,  OP,  U:  "doesnt". 

135.  wi95:7.  136.  wi(^6:j.  137.  U750;  wi98:5. 

138.  U758;  W202:3. 

139.  W20o:4.  Joyce  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  "Fll"  in  W20i:3 
and  W200:4  (chronologically  ordered);  the  apostrophe  in 
"doesn't,"  in  W203:3.  140.  h. 

141.  U730;  wi82:7.  U's  "I'll"  is  an  erratum;  cf.  h,  s,  op. 

142.  wi84:7. 

143.  wi85:8.  Here,  also,  after  "show"  he  adds  "him";  after 
"too",  "we  did  it". 

144.  U748;  wi98:4.  145.  See  above,  p.  86. 
146.  U729-30;  wi85:7.              147.  U735;  R. 

148.  Roberts  typescript.  149.  wi87:2. 

150.  U736;  R. 

151.  wi87:3.  He  also  changes  "an"  to  "this". 

152.  wi9i:3. 

153.  wi9o:3.  Discussed  above,  p.  92. 

154.  wi92:3.  He  gets  rid  of  the  apostrophes  in  wi88:3, 
wi9i:3,  and  h.  In  wi92:3  he  changes  "four"  to  "4"  before 
"years".  In  h,  after  "like"  he  deletes  "new". 

155.  U741;  wi87:7. 

156.  U748;  wi96:4.  In  h,  after  "itself"  Joyce  inserts  "or 
my  own  room  anyway". 

157.  U754;  wi96:8.  158.  U757;  W204:2. 

159.  W203:2.  Here,  also,  he  changes  "sixteen"  to  "16". 

160.  In  the  final  text,  Molly  thinks  about  music  constantly. 
Note,  furthermore,  the  probable  responsibility  of  "the  choirstairs 
performance"  (p.  748)  for  "the  chamber  performance"  (p. 
749),  part  of  an  addition  discussed  above,  p.  87. 

161.  U732;  Roberts  typescript.  The  sailor  had  growled  ''For 
England  .  .  .  home  and  beauty''  as  he  begged.  When  he 
"bayed"  the  last  three  words  towards  Molly's  window,  the  "gay 
sweet  chirping  whistling  within  went  on  a  bar  or  two,  ceased." 
Then  followed  Molly's  contribution  (U222). 

M.  J.  C.  Hodgart  and  M.  P.  Worthington,  Song  in  the  Works 
of  James  Joyce  (New  York,  1959),  p.  68,  give  the  title  of  the 


124  PRESCOTT 

sailor's  song  as  The  Death  of  Nelson.  Words  (by  S.  J.  Arnold) 
and  music  (by  John  Braham)  are  available  in  Granville  Ban- 
tock,  ed.,  One  Hundred  Songs  of  England  (Boston,  etc.  [1914]), 
pp.  171-75. 

162.  wi84:8.  For  the  added  song,  which  begins  v^ith  the 
v^^ords  "It  is  a  charming  girl  I  love,"  see  J.  Benedict,  composer, 
J.  Oxenford  and  Dion  Boucicault,  librettists.  The  Lily  of 
Killarney  (London  [1879]),  p.  8. 

163.  U744;  Roberts  typescript.  Joyce  deletes  the  apostrophe 
in  wi98:i. 

The  added  song  is,  of  course,  out  of  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's 
Mikado. 

164.  wi95:i.  In  wi96:i  Joyce  changes  "three"  to  "3". 

165.  "O  Maritana  wildwood  flov^^er"  (U759).  This  air  and 
the  air  in  the  addition  under  discussion  occur  in  W.  V.  Wal- 
lace's Maritana,  Act  in.  The  third  air  -  "The  Winds  that  Waft 
My  Sighs  to  Thee"  —  also  is  introduced  in  proof:  see  above, 
p.  105.  The  present  addition  echoes  Bloom's  use  of  the  same 
snatch  (U506). 

166.  U760;  W20i:5.  He  also  restores  "I"  before  "ever"  (both 
v^ords  were  part  of  an  addition  in  r)  and  deletes  all  the 
apostrophes  but  that  in  "I'll".  In  W203:5  he  deletes  that  one 
and  a  persistent  other  in  the  first  "love's". 

167.  W203:5.  In  W20o:5,  ^^^^^  "Tarifa"  Joyce  adds  "the 
lighthouse  at  Europa  point". 

168.  By  Clifton  Bingham  and  H.  Trotdre;  in  Hugo  Frey,  ed., 
Robbins  Mammoth  Collection  of  World  Famous  Songs  (Mam- 
moth Series  No.  2)  (New  York  [1939]),  p.  78.  The  song  is  re- 
ferred to  by  name  in  U271,  636,  740,  743.  (In  the  last  passage, 
Molly  appears  to  be  derisively  adapting  part  of  the  refrain, 
"Time  is  flying.  Love  is  sighing,"  to  "love  is  sighing  I  am 
dying".) 

169.  Perhaps  he  felt  that,  since  Molly  had  just  said  "theyre 
my  eyes",  the  darkness  of  her  eyes  (see  above,  p.  82)  would  be 
sufficient  stimulus  for  her  to  remember  "as  darkly  bright". 

170.  U763;  W202:7.  ''The  Winds  that  Waft  My  Sighs  to 
Thee,"  by  W.  V.  Wallace,  is  included  in  J.  C.  H.,  comp..  Good 
Old  Songs  We  Used  to  Sing,  11  (Boston,  etc.,  1895),  124-26. 

171.  U768;  W2io:2.  See  above,  p.  94. 


The  Characterization  of  Molly  Bloom  125 

In  W2ii:2  Joyce  alters  ''two"  to  **2";  however,  h,  s,  op,  and 
U  omit  "2". 

Musical  associations  added  in  revision  and  presented  in  other 
connections,  follow:  (1)  **he  goes  about  whistling  ...  his 
huguenots  or  the  frogs  march"  (above,  p.  104);  (2)  "Bill 
Bailey  won't  you  please  come  home"  (above,  p.  109). 

172.  'The  Characterization  of  Leopold  Bloom,"  Literature 
and  Psychology,  ix  (1959),  3-4. 

173.  Budgen,  p.  264.  174.  U671;  wi74:2. 

175.  U759;  v^2oo:4.  Somewhat  later,  Joyce  adds  "I  dont  want 
to  soak  it  all  out  of  him  like  the  other  women  do  besides  he 
wont  spend  it"  (U766;  W2ii:i).  (The  final  text  is  achieved  in 
W2ii:i  and  W2o8:2.) 

176.  U749;  wi95:5.  In  H  Joyce  deletes  "it". 

OP,  u:  "5/-",  which  was  part  of  an  addition  in  wi98:5; 
but  a  short  hyphen  appears  to  have  been  mistaken  for  a  period, 
deleted  by  Joyce  in  wi95:5. 

R,  wi 94-99,  H,  s:  "drove";  s8,  op,  U:  "drive". 

177.  See  above,  p.  83. 

178.  U763;  W202:7.  ^^^  "sigh"  is  of  a  piece  with  the  intro- 
duction in  this  same  galley,  just  before  "so  well  he  may  sleep", 
of  "listen  to  him  the  winds  that  waft  my  sighs  to  thee"  (see 
above,  p.  105). 

The  rest  of  the  text  is  built  up  in  W200:8  (see  above,  pp. 
95-96)   and  between  that  galley  and  h. 

179.  U723;  R.  180.  Roberts  typescript. 
181.  wi79:i.                               182.  wi85:i. 

183.  U727-28;  wi84:5.  Joyce  supplies  the  apparently  for- 
gotten "me"  after  "annoyed"  in  v^i85:5.  The  rest  of  the  text 
is  added  in  wi 85 15  and  between  h  and  publication. 

184.  U749;  wi95:4.  Here,  also,  Joyce  alters  "2"  to  "4", 
heightening  Molly's  grievance  at  the  same  time  that  he  adds  a 
reason  for  affection. 

185.  U723;  wi 79:1.  He  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  wi83:i  and 
v^i84:i. 

In  wi84:i,  after  "much"  he  adds  "a  nun". 

186.  U309:  "What's  your  programme  today?" 

187.  U737;  wi9i:4.  He  also  deletes  the  apostrophe. 
U's  "pottering"  is  an  erratum;  see  above,  p.  99. 


125  PRESCOTT 

188.  U732;  W186  (single  page). 

189.  U735-36;  wi87:3. 

190.  wi88:3.  The  inscription   in   the  Daranti^re  stamp   in 
W187  reads: 


^j.g  ri8  octobre  1921 

In 


.Mii«  Beach 
That  in  wi88  reads: 

(3  novembre  1921 

tM"«  Beach 
191,  U750;  R.  192.  wi94:5.  193.  H. 

194.  U760;  W202:5.  195.  U766;  W2io:i. 

196.  U725-26;  wi84:3.  He  also  deletes  the  apostrophe  in 
"wouldn't"  and  substitutes  "the"  for  the  first  "his". 

A  Father  Bernard  Corrigan  is  mentioned  in  U716.  Bernard 
Corrigan,  on  pp.  631-32  and  689,  seems  to  be  a  namesake. 

U's  "couldn't"  and  "wouldn't"  are  errata.  Joyce  deleted  the 
apostrophe  in  "couldn't"  in  wi79:3. 

197.  U735;  wi9i:2.  Previous  allusions  to  Val  Dillon  occur 
in  U153,  230,  364,  716. 

Note  how  Molly  corroborates  our  knowledge  of  the  parasitic 
Lenehan,  who  gave  his  version  of  the  ride  over  Featherbed 
Mountain  on  pp.  230-31. 

198.  H. 

199.  U759;  R.  He  deletes  the  apostrophe  in  W20i:4.  In  h, 
after  "home"  he  adds  "her  widows  weeds  wont  improve  her  ap- 
pearance theyre  awfully  becoming  though  if  youre  goodlooking" 
—  another  contribution  to  Molly's  awareness  of  clothes. 

The  song  "Bill  Bailey,  Won't  You  Please  Come  Home," 
words  and  music  by  Hughie  Cannon,  is  available  in  }.  J.  Geller, 
Famous  Songs  and  Their  Stories  (New  York  [1931]),  pp. 
207-10. 

200.  E.  B.  Burgum,  "  'Ulysses'  and  the  Impasse  of  Indi- 
vidualism," Virginia  Quarterly  Review^  xvii  (1941),  563. 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses 


WILLIAM     EMPSON 


1.  Kenyon  Review,  Winter,  1956 

I  SHOWED  the  following  radio  talk  to  Mr.  Ransom 
last  year,  and  he  kindly  said  he  would  like  a  piece  for  the 
Kenyon  on  the  topic,  of  about  twice  the  length.  I  realized 
what  he  meant  when  I  showed  it  to  other  persons,  who  said 
things  like  ''But  have  you  seen  the  recently  discovered  notes 
preparatory  to  the  play  Exiles?"  This  I  had  done,  but  the 
argument  had  had  to  be  simplified  for  the  talk,  and  I  had 
not  seen  the  article  of  Mr.  Richard  Ellmann.^  I  said  I 
could  write  a  longer  version  at  once,  but  then  I  found  the 
process  depressing.  A  reason  for  this  resistance  is  perhaps 
that  the  plan  was  mistaken;  it  is  more  interesting  for  the 
reader  to  be  given  the  radio  talk  and  then  some  answers  to 
objections  that  might  occur  to  him.  Perhaps  I  should  add 
that  I  wrote  a  much  longer  text  on  the  same  subject  in 
Peking,  which  I  may  yet  try  to  improve;  but  to  have  to  try 
to  appear  sensible  at  moderate  length  is  always  a  good  test 
of  a  theory;  one  had  better  do  that  early. 


WILLIAM  EMPSON,  whosc  Seven  Types  of  Ambiguity  set  the  course 
for  much  of  contemporary  criticism,  teaches  at  the  University  of 
Sheffield  in  England.  His  literary  interests  are  extremely  diverse; 
ranging  from  the  essay  on  Joyce  in  this  Miscellany  to  his  recently 
published  work  on  Milton. 


127 


128  EMPSON 


II.  {BBC  Third  Programme  Talk,  Bloomsday  1954) 

What  I  have  to  say  cannot  help  sounding  a  bit  odd.  It 
sounds  both  rather  improper  in  itself  and  also  a  rather  un- 
highminded  view  to  take  of  the  great  book  Ulysses.  But  I 
have  long  thought  that  my  view  of  that  book  is  not  only 
much  less  dismal  than  what  critics  usually  say  about  it  but 
also  allows  you  to  think  that  the  author  had  decent  feelings 
in  writing  it,  instead  of  very  nasty  ones.  Let  me  recall  that 
the  book  describes  one  day  in  the  life  of  Stephen  Dedalus, 
who  was  the  hero  of  a  previous  book  by  Joyce  called  Portrait 
of  the  Artist  as  a  Young  Man,  so  Stephen  in  Ulysses  has  to 
be  Joyce  himself  on  June  16th  1904.  He  appears  in  the  book 
w  Ulysses  to  be  accepting  friendship  from  the  man  Bloom,  a 
coarse  and  depressed  advertising  agent  who  soon  becomes 
much  more  funny  and  interesting  and  agreeable  than  Ste- 
phen; but  in  the  whole  last  third  of  the  book  this  offer  of 
friendship  is  becoming  more  and  more  of  a  failure,  till  the 
heroic  young  author  walks  away  into  the  night.  Bloom  is 
married  to  a  well-known  professional  singer,  and  the  mar- 
riage has  got  into  great  confusion,  and  he  offers  to  put 
Stephen  to  bed  with  his  wife,  not  in  actual  words  but  ex- 
tremely plainly;  and  his  chief  reason  is  that  he  wants  to  get 
rid  of  her  present  lover.  Blazes  Boylan,  the  worst  man  in 
Dublin.  The  last  chapter  of  the  book  is  a  vast  monologue  by 
the  wife  Molly  thinking  in  bed;  she  is  now  looking  forward 
to  pleasure  with  Stephen,  whom  her  husband  has  described 
to  her  before  going  to  sleep,  but  also  as  her  chapter  goes  on 
she  expresses  a  surprising  amount  of  emotional  dependence 
upon  her  reliable  husband.  As  for  Bloom,  the  book  has  al- 
ready made  him  reflect  that  he  will  be  almost  in  despair  if 
Stephen  doesn't  come  back.  However  Stephen,  even  though 
we  have  seen  him  refuse  everything  and  everybody  else  in 
Dublin,  and  he  has  nowhere  to  sleep,  let  alone  any  source  of 
money,  has  walked  out  on  them  at  two  in  the  morning.  I 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  129 

think  it  is  true  to  say  that  every  one  of  the  critics,  all  these 
years,  has  assumed  that  both  the  Blooms  are  deluded  when 
they  hope  that  Stephen  will  come  back  to  them.  This  of 
course  has  made  all  the  critics  think  the  book  frightful, 
whether  they  admire  it  or  denounce  it;  both  sides  take  for 
granted  that  it  is  not  merely  pointless  but  as  one  might  say 
nerve-rackingly  and  needlingly  pointless,  saying  nothing  ex- 
cept that  nothing  in  Dublin  was  good  enough  for  the  young 
Joyce.  It  would  be  fun  to  give  a  lot  of  quotations  from  critics, 
but  I  haven't  time. 

Now,  I  think  this  basic  assumption  about  the  book  com- 
pletely wrong.  It  is  meant  to  be  a  very  gay  book,  and  a  lot 
of  it  actually  is  so  funny  that  I  can't  read  it  aloud  at  home 
of  an  evening,  as  I  have  sometimes  tried  to  do,  without 
breaking  down  and  going  into  fits.  You  and  I  may  think  he 
makes  Dublin  seem  sordid  and  dismal,  but  we  need  to 
realize  that  Joyce  didn't  think  that  himself;  after  1904,  the 
year  of  the  story,  he  chose  to  be  in  exile  for  almost  all  the 
rest  of  his  life,  but  he  stuck  to  saying  he  had  never  felt  at 
home  except  in  Dublin.  Now  there  is  nothing  in  the  book 
to  stop  you  from  assuming,  what  seems  natural  if  you  start 
from  this  point  of  view,  that  Stephen  did  go  to  bed  with 
Molly,  very  soon  after  the  one  day  of  the  book;  and,  what 
is  more,  that  Joyce  when  he  looks  back  thinks  it  probably 
saved  his  hfe  and  anyhow  made  it  possible  for  him  to  be- 
come the  great  author  who  tells  the  story.  Joyce  was  a  very 
self-important  man,  as  he  had  to  be  to  do  what  he  did,  and 
he  was  also  fanatically  devoted  to  making  his  art  tell  the 
essential  truth.  He  would  never  have  turned  the  final  book 
of  his  autobiography  into  a  mere  description  of  how  sick- 
eningly  mean-minded  and  nasty  he  had  been  when  he  was 
young.  He  knew  he  was  doing  that  too;  he  said  to  a  friend 
who  saw  the  work  in  progress,  "I  haven't  let  this  young  man 
off  lightly,  have  I?"  For  that  matter,  there  is  a  photograph 
of  Joyce  taken  in  1904  which  makes  me  feel  sure  that  the 
later  Joyce  made  him  look  much  worse  than  he  was.^  As  the 


130  EMPSON 

book  shows  the  young  man,  he  is  downright  dangerous;  he 
is  on  the  edge  either  of  lunacy  or  crime.  But  that  is  why  the 
young  man  needed  what  happened  to  him  on  the  day  of  the 
novel;  after  that  he  turned  into  the  novelist  Joyce,  an  ex- 
tremely fixed  and  reliable  character,  and  there  was  no  further 
development  of  his  character  that  Joyce  felt  any  duty  to  put 
in  a  book,  ever  after.  You  see,  the  first  thing  about  his  at- 
titude to  writing  novels  is  that  they  ought  to  tell  the  es- 
sential truth.  But  here,  as  he  was  writing  about  himself,  he 
had  another  duty,  to  hide  the  people  he  was  really  talking 
about.  In  this  second  duty,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out,  he 
succeeded  completely;  the  Dubliners  are  wonderful  gossips, 
but  they  have  never  found  out. 

We  need  therefore  to  consider  Joyce^s  own  life  at  the 
time.  The  day  of  the  novel  Ulysses  is  June  16th  1904,  and 
that  June  was  when  he  first  met  the  lady  who  ran  away 
with  him  from  Ireland  the  following  October,  and  remained 
his  devoted  wife  through  all  his  future  troubles  (incidentally 
her  relations  gave  enough  money  at  a  crucial  point  to  keep 
the  family  alive).  Now  in  the  rejected  first  version  of  the 
Portrait  of  the  Artist,  some  of  which  happens  to  have  sur- 
vived, he  describes  how  the  young  man  became  fond  of  a 
respectable  young  girl  and  expressed  this  by  waylaying  her  in 
the  street  and  saying  that  if  she  would  go  to  bed  with  him 
at  once  he  would  fall  in  love  with  her  later.  It  seems  she 
didn't  take  this  too  solemnly  but  felt  she  couldn't  have  any 
more  to  do  with  him.  We  hear  a  good  deal  in  his  books 
about  the  brothels  then  in  Dublin,  and  the  peculiar  mixture 
of  fascination  and  disgust  which  he  felt  for  the  girls  there. 
Now,  for  any  young  man,  this  makes  a  confusing  experience 
when  he  passes  on  to  try  to  deal  with  a  respectable  girl,  but 
much  more  so  for  the  young  Joyce,  who  was  in  revolt  against 
all  convention,  because  such  a  man  refuses  to  try  out  the 
accepted  rules.  Molly  would  be  the  first  woman  not  a 
prostitute  he  had  ever  been  to  bed  with,  and  this  would  be 
a  very  decisive  thing  in  his  life,  one  might  almost  say  his 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  131 

first  real  sexual  experience.  Molly  was  not  too  hampering 
for  him,  she  wouldn't  tie  him  down;  but  she  was  peaceful 
and  domestic,  she  was  earning  her  own  living,  and  above  all 
she  would  never  put  up  with  being  despised.  I  tell  you  the 
first  thing  Molly  would  do;  she  would  make  him  wash  (he 
spends  a  lot  of  time,  as  part  of  his  general  revolt,  boasting 
that  he  hasn't  washed  for  a  year  or  some  such  period.)^  Now 
it  is  very  unlikely  that  he  could  have  got  his  future  wife  to 
trust  him  so  deeply  as  to  run  away  with  him  unless  he  had 
had  some  such  experience  with  an  older  woman  first.  Ste- 
phen as  we  meet  him  in  Ulysses  could  not  have  induced  a 
reliable  level-headed  girl  to  do  that;  she  would  have  realized 
that  he  was  already  jeering  at  her,  even  though  he  didn't 
want  to. 

I  have  gone  into  all  this  at  perhaps  tiresome  length  be- 
cause I  believe  it  is  the  fundamental  human  point  of  the 
novel.  When  Joyce  came  to  look  back  on  his  life,  a  number 
of  years  later,  having  finished  the  book  Dubliners  in  the 
meantime,  he  thought,  ''How  did  it  happen?  How  did  I  get 
out  with  body  and  soul  alive  from  that  appalling  situation?" 
And  then  he  thought,  ''What  made  it  possible,  the  turning 
point,  was  that  first  minor  affair  with  old  Molly."  This  was 
a  delightful  conclusion  for  the  novelist,  because  he  could  go 
ahead  with  a  clear  conscience,  and  tell  the  truth,  and  the 
more  he  invented  things  to  hide  the  real  individuals  the 
better.  On  this  view,  the  whole  idea  that  the  story  of  Ulysses 
was  meant  to  feel  "bitter,"  with  nothing  ever  happening,  in 
fact  not  an  epic,*  is  simply  a  delusion  which  the  critics  copy 
out  from  one  another. 

This  much  I  think  can't  help  being  true,  but  there  is 
another  half  of  the  story  in  Ulysses  which  I  am  less  sure  of. 
It  is  in  the  book,  my  question  is  whether  it  really  happened; 
and  the  chief  reason  for  thinking  it  did  is  that  Joyce  seems 
so  very  incapable  of  inventing  it.  You  understand,  I  am  now 
going  further:  I  am  postulating  two  happy  endings  for  a 
story  which  has  long  been  regarded  as  consecrated  to  frustra- 


132  EMPSON 

tion.  Bloom  is  described,  with  startling  literary  power  so 
that  there  is  no  doubt  about  it,  as  having  a  very  specific 
neurosis:  the  death  of  his  infant  son  ten  years  before  gave 
him  a  horror  of  the  business  of  having  a  child  so  that  he 
can't  try  to  have  another  one.  At  the  same  time  he  longs 
to  have  a  son,  and  so  does  Molly;  both  of  them,  during  their 
private  reflections  in  the  book,  are  made  to  express  this  with 
dreadful  pathos.  (By  the  way,  I  have  no  patience  with  critics 
who  say  it  is  impossible  ever  to  tell  whether  Joyce  means  a 
literary  effect  to  be  ironical  or  not;  if  they  don't  know  this 
part  isn't  funny,  they  ought  to.)  Bloom  is  not  impotent  or 
homosexual  or  afraid  of  Molly;  he  has  simply  this  special 
trouble  which  has  long  upset  his  home  life.  He  feels  that  if 
he  could  plant  on  her  a  lover  he  was  fond  of,  who  would 
even  take  his  advice  instead  of  jeering  at  him,  he  could  even 
now  have  this  son  himself  by  his  wife;  and  after  that  was 
over,  and  the  present  jam  in  his  married  life  was  broken,  so 
his  incessantly  calculating  mind  begins  to  reflect,  he  might 
even  fix  Molly  by  marrying  Stephen  to  their  daughter  Milly. 
That  would  be  the  best  thing  for  Milly  too;  and  if  you  could 
only  get  Stephen  to  be  a  reliable  concert  singer  he  would 
be  a  very  useful  man  to  have  in  the  house.  Now  Joyce  very 
nearly  did  become  a  concert  singer,  and  was  extremely  proud 
of  his  voice,  though  he  couldn't  afford  to  have  it  fully 
trained.  He  failed  in  an  audition  for  the  profession  after  the 
day  of  the  book.  And  we  gather  the  main  job  of  Bloom  is 
as  an  entrepreneur  for  his  wife's  jobs  as  a  singer,  though  the 
rude  Blazes  Boylan  is  doing  it  at  present;  so  Bloom  is  in  a 
position  to  make  serious  offers  to  Stephen.  Some  critics  have 
described  this  sordid  beast  Bloom  as  trying  to  drag  the  great 
genius  Joyce  down  into  the  mud,  but  Joyce  didn't  look  at  it 
like  that,  very  reasonably.  When  Bloom  says  to  Stephen,  in 
effect,  *1  am  only  trying  to  save  you  for  my  own  advantage," 
he  is  showing  good  feeling  and  good  manners;  in  a  way  it  is 
true,  but  he  is  going  very  far  out  of  his  way  to  do  it.  And 
music  is  one  of  the  few  positive  arts  in  the  curious  world  of 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  133 

the  book;  everybody  takes  singing  extremely  seriously.  If  you 
join  the  sexual  story  onto  the  whole  position  of  the  char- 
acters, you  needn't  think  it  so  very  scabrous.  We  know  that 
in  the  end  Joyce  didn't  go  in  for  singing,  but  the  offer  he 
describes  as  being  made  to  him  was  a  serious  one  all  round. 

Now,  an  enormous  background  of  symbolism  is  piled  up 
behind  this  personal  story,  or  rather  this  preparation  for  a 
story;  about  mother-goddesses  and  fertility  cults,  about  the 
son  who  has  renounced  his  father  and  is  searching  for  a 
spiritual  father,  about  the  father  looking  for  a  son,  about 
what  Shakespeare  meant  by  the  Sonnets  and  by  Hamlet^ 
and  of  course  about  the  Odyssey  itself.  All  this  background 
seems  fussy  and  pedantic  until  you  realize  that  it  builds  up 
the  terrible  refusal  to  choose,  done  by  Stephen  in  the  Ques- 
tion-and- Answer  chapter.  This  comes  just  before  the  final 
chapter,  given  to  Molly.  A  parody  of  both  scientific  and 
legal  styles  of  writing  makes  it  almost  impossible  to  find  out 
what  Bloom  and  Stephen  are  feeling  about  each  other,  or 
even  saying  to  each  other.  Joyce  said  that  this  chapter  was  the 
Ugly  Duckling  of  his  book,  meaning  of  course  that  in  the 
end  it  would  be  recognized  as  a  swan.  The  chapter  certainly 
need  not  be  taken  to  mean  that  Stephen  will  never  accept; 
surely  the  chief  point  of  it  is  that  in  real  life  he  couldn't 
decide,  at  such  a  peculiarly  exhausting  moment.  The  drama 
of  the  thing  is  left  entirely  hanging  in  suspense.  But  at  any 
rate  a  real  offer  is  being  made;  there  is  no  need  for  critics 
to  say  that  nothing  but  grim  acceptance  of  the  sordid  com- 
monplace is  going  on  all  through  the  last  third  of  the  book. 

As  to  the  parallel  with  the  Odyssey,  which  is  made  prom- 
inent in  the  title,  that  seems  merely  tiresome  if  it  is  only 
supposed  to  be  what  is  called  irony,  that  is,  a  joke  because  it 
doesn't  fit;  the  point  of  it,  I  think,  is  that  it  was  the  only 
way  left  for  Joyce  to  hint  that  there  would  be  a  happy  end- 
ing for  Ulysses-Bloom.  In  fact  this  is  what  makes  the  book 
an  epic.  Joyce  can't  do  it  any  other  way  if  he  is  to  keep  to 
his  rigid  convention  of  one  day  and  also  keep  to  his  theory 


134  EMPSON 

that  the  author  must  not  speak  in  person.  The  book  is  like 
the  Ibsen  Problem  Plays  which  he  greatly  admired;  the  aim 
is  to  thrust  on  the  reader  a  general  problem,  so  one  mustn't 
make  it  easy  for  the  reader  by  ending  with  a  particular 
solution.  The  reason  for  dragging  in  Shakespeare  and  the 
Sonnets,  which  happens  chiefly  when  Stephen  tries  to  get 
advance  payment  for  an  article  on  Shakespeare  by  talking 
about  him  in  the  library  chapter,  is  simply  that  the  reader 
needs  this  amount  of  help  to  understand  the  book;  the  sit- 
uation that  Joyce  is  leading  up  to  is  one  that  hardly  any 
other  author  has  handled,  whereas  something  like  it  does 
happen  to  crop  up  in  the  Shakespeare  Sonnets.  And  then, 
the  reason  for  the  magnificent  but  over-laboured  chapter  in 
the  maternity  hospital  is  that  the  book  is  leading  up  to 
Ulysses-Bloom  recovering  his  son.  And  so  forth.  All  this  is 
evident,  but  critics  usually  deal  with  it  by  saying  that  the 
relation  of  a  spiritual  father  to  his  spiritual  son  was  what 
Joyce  meant.  But  Joyce  would  have  laughed  at  that;  it  could 
only  mean  to  him  a  priest,  and  he  was  cross  with  priests;  he 
had  himself  refused  to  become  one.  Only  a  real  son  would 
count,  and  he  has  laboured  to  present  a  special  psychology 
for  Bloom  which  makes  a  real  son  a  possible  result  of  this 
day.  To  be  sure,  the  novel  does  not  ask  you  to  believe  that 
Bloom  did  have  a  son,  but  it  does  expect  you  to  believe  that 
on  this  day  Bloom  is  getting  a  real  opportunity  to  produce 
a  son;  the  problem  as  it  is  shown  to  you  is  not  trivial.  Nor 
is  there  anything  in  the  book  to  make  you  assume,  as  the 
critics  regularly  do,  that  Bloom  must  have  lost  his  oppor- 
tunity. 

Such  is  my  general  opinion  about  the  book,  and  I  ought 
now  to  present  at  least  a  little  evidence  for  it.  The  bit  about 
Stephen's  Doom,  in  the  Question-and-Answer  chapter, 
seems  a  good  example.  I  might  first  say  that,  early  in  the 
book,  Stephen  has  struggled  to  remember,  while  alone  on 
the  beach,  a  dream  he  had  last  night  which  is  in  effect  the 
Bloom  Offer;  he  feels  a  certain  fear  about  what  the  dream 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  135 

meant.  Joyce,  as  well  as  Stephen,  was  a  quaintly  superstitious 
man  who  would  regard  a  prophetic  dream  as  a  serious  part 
of  the  build-up.  Towards  the  end  of  the  book  the  exhausted 
Stephen,  already  drunk  and  half  starving  and  half  mad  with 
remorse,  and  then  knocked  out  by  a  soldier,  has  been 
searched  out  and  picked  up  and  taken  home  by  Bloom,  who 
is  a  Jew,  and  given  cocoa;  then  Stephen  sings  a  savage  ballad 
about  the  Christian  boy  who  went  into  the  Jew's  house  and 
was  killed  by  the  Jew's  daughter.  This  is  his  habit,  and  does 
not  mean  serious  anti-Semitic  feelings;  as  soon  as  he  revived, 
he  would  insult  anybody  who  was  helping  him,  in  the 
simplest  way  he  could.  Then,  in  the  appalling  style  of  this 
chapter,  we  have  (and  I  quote) : 

Condense  Stephen's  commentary. 

One  of  all,  the  least  of  all,  is  the  victim  predestined. 
Once  by  inadvertence,  twice  by  design  he  challenges  his 
destiny.  It  comes  when  he  is  abandoned  and  challenges 
him  reluctant  and,  as  an  apparition  of  hope  and  youth, 
holds  him  unresisting.  It  leads  him  to  a  strange  habita- 
tion, to  a  secret  infidel  apartment,  and  there,  implacable, 
immolates  him,  consenting. 

This  handsome  paragraph  has  rather  little  to  do  with  the 
song,  and  I  think  it  must  mean  that  Stephen  will  consent 
to  the  Bloom  Offer,  though  he  is  automatically  nasty  about 
it.  You  may  naturally  think  that  he  won't  do  it  if  he  thinks 
it  is  a  doom.  But  the  reader  has  had  some  acquaintance  with 
him  by  this  time,  and  every  time  he  has  seen  a  doom  he  has 
run  into  it  as  fast  as  he  could  go.  Why  should  we  suppose 
he  will  keep  away  from  this  particularly  interesting  doom? 
I  would  take  a  small  bet  that  he  didn't. 

So  far  as  one  can  make  out,  Stephen  rambles  on  drunkenly 
saying  what  is  ''condensed"  in  this  answer,  while  the  hurt 
Bloom  is  silent.  Then  there  seems  to  be  a  long  pause,  while 
this  insult  makes  Bloom  think  about  his  own  daughter. 
(You  understand  I  am  trying  to  interpret  this  frightful 
text.)  The  next  words  are  Bloom  inviting  Stephen  to  stay 


136  EMPSON 

the  night,  and  Stephen  is  shocked  by  this  kindness  into 
rather  more  decent  behavior. 

Was  the  proposal  of  asylum  accepted? 
Promptly,  inexplicably,  with  amicability,  gratefully  it 
was  declined. 

So  Bloom  gives  him  back  the  bit  of  money  he  had  saved 
him  from  throwing  away,  and  Stephen  then  promises  to 
come  back  and  clear  up  for  Molly  the  Italian  pronunciation 
of  the  concert  songs  she  sings  in  Italian.  The  promise  is 
expressed  so  very  obscurely,  and  has  been  so  much  ignored 
by  critics,  that  it  needs  quoting.  It  goes  like  this: 

What  counterproposals  were  alternately  advanced,  ac- 
cepted, modified,  declined,  restated  in  other  terms,  reac- 
cepted,  ratified,  reconfirmed? 

To  inaugurate  a  prearranged  course  of  Italian  instruc- 
tion, place  the  residence  of  the  instructed.  To  inaugurate 
a  course  of  vocal  instruction,  place  the  residence  of  the 
instructress.  To  inaugurate  a  series  of  static,  semistatic  and 
peripatetic  intellectual  dialogues,  places  the  residence  of 
both  speakers  (if  both  speakers  were  resident  in  the  same 
place),  the  Ship  hotel  and  tavern,  the  ...  . 

and  so  on,  a  farcical  list  of  other  places.  It  does  look  as  if 
Stephen  was  bored  and  irritated  by  the  efforts  of  poor  Bloom 
to  pin  him  down  about  these  intellectual  talks.  But  we  must 
remember  the  meaning  of  the  word  counterproposal,  which 
Joyce  would  not  simply  get  wrong,  especially  when  he  is 
claiming  to  be  pedantic.  The  proposal  was  made  by  Bloom, 
to  stay  the  night;  the  counterproposal  was  therefore  made 
by  Stephen,  to  come  later  and  improve  Molly's  Italian;  this 
was  ratified  and  reconfirmed.  The  tactless  Bloom  then  sug- 
gested that  Molly  as  a  professional  singer  could  train  Ste- 
phen for  that  career,  which  would  offend  Stephen,  so  he  is 
rude  about  it.  But  he  urgently  needs  something  to  do,  now 
that  he  has  thrown  up  his  job;  he  is  very  scornful  of  other 
people  who  break  their  promises,  and  he  has  just  made  a 
promise;  and  he  has  not  yet  met  Molly,  though  he  has  heard 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  137 

so  much  about  her.  Surely  the  Bloom  Offer  would  at  least 
excite  curiosity.  I  think  he  refuses  to  stay  the  night  merely 
because  he  wants  to  meet  her  first  on  some  other  footing 
than  that  of  waif  and  stray;  it  would  be  very  like  his  habitual 
pride.  We  need  not  suppose  he  thinks  he  is  too  grand  or 
too  high-class  to  do  anything  with  the  Bloom  couple  except 
tell  lies  to  them;  that  is  not  the  way  Stephen's  pride  works, 
or  Joyce's  either. 

The  difficulty  about  Ulysses,  as  is  obvious  if  you  read  the 
extremely  various  opinions  of  critics,  is  that,  whereas  most 
novels  tell  you  what  the  author  expects  you  to  feel,  this  one 
not  only  refuses  to  tell  you  the  end  of  the  story,  it  also 
refuses  to  tell  you  what  the  author  thinks  would  have  been  1 
a  good  end  to  the  story.  A  critic  of  Ulysses  always  holds  a 
theory  about  the  intention  of  Joyce  in  Ulysses,  without  real- 
izing that  he  is  holding  it.  Most  of  the  critics  who  have 
hated  the  book,  and  also  the  American  Judge  who  allowed 
the  book  into  the  States,  which  he  did  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  emetic  rather  than  aphrodisiac,  seem  to  hold  what  I 
call  the  Jeer  Theory;  that  is,  they  think  there  really  was  a 
couple,  whom  we  may  call  the  Ur-Blooms,  who  tried  to  be 
kind  to  the  young  Joyce,  and  as  a  result  the  elder  Joyce  spent 
at  least  ten  years  in  trying  to  make  them  look  immortally 
ridiculous  and  disgusting.  No  wonder  these  readers  think 
Joyce  a  pretty  disgusting  author;  no  other  objection  to  the 
morality  of  the  book  is  half  so  serious  as  that  one.  I  think 
Joyce  simply  miscalculated  there;  he  did  not  foresee  that 
people  would  read  him  like  that,  chiefly  because  it  was  so 
remote  from  his  own  sentiments.  Most  critics  who  have  ac- 
cepted him,  so  far  as  one  can  make  out,  have  adopted  what 
I  call  the  Remorse  Theory;  that  is,  they  think  there  was  a 
Bloom  Offer,  and  that  Joyce  rejected  it,  and  perhaps  went 
on  feeling  he  couldn't  have  done  anything  but  reject  it,  but 
even  so  came  to  feel  he  was  a  cad  about  rejecting  it,  and 
perhaps  that  somehow  it  could  have  been  accepted  in  a 
better  world.  This  gives  you  a  decent  moral  basis  for  reading 


138  EMPSON 

the  book,  as  far  as  the  author  is  concerned,  but  it  makes  the 
book  seem  very  dismal  or  even  self-torturing.  I  am  assuming 
that  we  cannot  hold  the  Pure  Invention  Theory,  which 
critics  in  their  tactful  way  usually  take  for  granted;  I  do  not 
believe  Joyce  was  capable  of  inventing  such  a  good  story, 
as  it  works  out;  the  unearthly  shocking  surprise  with  which 
all  the  theorizing  of  the  book  at  last  becomes  solid,  as  an 
actual  homely  example,  hard  to  know  what  to  make  of.  We 
have  only  to  peep  into  Finnegans  Wake,  where  Joyce  clearly 
was  trying  to  invent  a  story,  to  see  how  extremely  short  of 
novelistic  invention  he  was  in  his  otherwise  wonderful  equip- 
ment. For  that  matter  his  behavior  in  later  life  doesn't  sug- 
gest the  Pure  Invention  Theory  at  all,  and  positively  refutes 
the  Remorse  Theory;  he  expected  all  his  friends  to  come  on 
Bloomsday  for  a  sort  of  private  Christmas  and  celebrate  it 
in  a  farcical  but  rejoicing  manner.  As  soon  as  you  look  at 
the  matter  from  that  angle,  which  most  critics  have  refused 
to  do,  it  seems  clear  the  Acceptance  Theory  holds  the  field. 
I  am  also  rejecting  the  Pure  Epiphany  Theory,  which 
some  critics  have  deduced  because  Joyce  himself  said  that 
a  novel  ought  to  give  an  Epiphany.  I  agree  that  this  opinion 
of  Joyce  is  important,  because  it  shows  he  didn't  think  a 
novel  ought  to  be  pointless.  But,  the  way  the  critics  take  it, 
even  a  tiny  contact  with  the  young  Joyce  is  supposed  to  have 
been  enough  to  bring  happiness  to  the  Blooms.  This  school 
makes  great  play  with  Bloom  asking  his  wife  for  breakfast 
in  bed  next  morning,  just  before  he  goes  to  sleep;  it  is 
supposed  to  show  he  has  become  a  man  again;  but  it  seems 
a  natural  thing  to  do,  after  he  has  had  such  a  hard  day.  He 
isn't  shown  as  afraid  of  his  wife,  except  in  his  nightmares; 
in  fact  the  Citizen  says  he  bullies  her.  What  is  wrong  with 
him  is  a  more  specific  psychological  trouble.  In  any  case, 
this  theory,  though  it  doesn't  make  the  author  malicious  or 
poisoned,  surely  makes  him  ridiculously  vain  about  his  in- 
fluence as  a  young  man;  he  might  as  well  have  called  the 
book  Pippa  Passes.  There  is,  I  would  agree,  a  strand  of  silli- 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  139 

ness  in  the  mind  of  Joyce,  but  nothing  near  as  bad  as  that. 

A  great  deal  of  the  difficulty  of  writing  the  book,  and 
indeed  I  think  its  peculiar  form,  came  from  the  fact  that  he 
had  already  told  the  reader  he  is  writing  about  his  own  life. 
Surely  this  made  it  very  hard  to  tell  what  he  thought  the 
essential  part  of  his  own  story  without  dragging  in  the 
originals  of  the  Blooms.  I  make  no  doubt  that  they  were 
extremely  different  from  the  Bloom  couple  in  the  book;  for 
one  thing,  I  think  making  them  Jewish  was  part  of  the 
business  of  laying  a  false  trail.  The  whole  game  of  keeping 
his  secret  while  telling  the  truth  on  such  a  big  scale  was 
obviously  a  great  spur  to  his  invention,  and  also  gave  him 
a  great  deal  of  innocent  glee.  This  also,  I  think,  explains 
another  rather  puzzling  aspect  of  the  book.  Once  you  realize 
that  he  has  got  hold  of  a  subject  of  great  interest,  in  fact 
one  which  novelists  do  not  dare  to  treat,  it  does  seem  absurd 
to  have  hidden  it  completely  from  practically  all  readers 
while  getting  himself  banned  for  years  on  completely  irrel- 
evant grounds  of  petty  indecency.  But  he  wanted  to  do  both; 
his  novel  was  meant  to  be  the  last  word  all  round,  the  last 
word  in  using  rude  words,  and  also  the  last  word  in  the 
problem  novel  treating  a  profound  subject  which  would 
gradually  open  itself  to  posterity.  You  may  well  ask  why  I 
should  suppose  that  the  critics  have  all  been  wrong  for  so 
long;  the  answer  is  that  Joyce  felt  he  had  to  arrange  things 
like  that,  and  the  business  of  doing  it  gave  him  a  very  ex- 
hilarating sense  of  glory. 

Well,  I  do  not  expect  to  get  agreement  on  this  subject; 
many  very  keen  minds  have  been  at  work  for  twenty  years 
on  what  the  intention  of  Ulysses  can  be.  But  my  theor}^  does 
at  least  prevent  the  book  from  seeming  a  record  piece  of 
dismal  sustained  nagging;  and  also  I  turn  the  puzzle  into 
something  which  the  mind  of  Joyce,  always  a  straightfor- 
wardly well-intentioned  mind  unless  he  was  kicking  back  at 
a  supposed  enemy,  would  have  enjoyed  doing.^  It  may  well 
be  true  that  Joyce  hadn't  had  enough  experience  of  the 


140  EMPSON 

Bloom  situation  to  finish  the  book  properly;  that  is,  he  did 
go  to  bed  with  the  original  Molly,  but  he  only  felt  after- 
wards that  he  hadn't  been  friends  enough  with  her  husband. 
So  then  he  tried  to  work  out  the  Bloom  situation  as  far  as 
he  could  just  because  other  novelists  had  funked  it.  But  I 
think  it  equally  likely  that  the  original  Bloom  couple  did 
have  a  son  as  a  result  of  this  incident,  a  son  by  Bloom,  who 
will  now  be  about  fifty,  and  that  is  why  Joyce  always  felt 
such  glee  about  the  whole  affair.  Joyce  might  have  said 
what  Jane  Austen  said  on  a  similar  occasion;  Jane  Austen 
has  just  remarked,  at  the  end  of  Northanger  Abbey ^  that  the 
rich  young  man  in  her  story  wanted  to  marry  the  heroine 
merely  because  she  had  recklessly  shown  she  was  fond  of 
him,  and  then  Jane  Austen  says: 

It  is  a  new  circumstance  in  romance,  I  acknowledge;  but  if 
it  be  as  new  in  common  life,  the  credit  of  a  wild  imagina- 
tion will  at  least  be  all  my  own. 

III.   (1956) 

It  occurred  to  me,  when  I  thought  about  expanding  this 
material  for  the  Kenyon  Review,  that  I  am  blaspheming 
against  two  dogmas  which  have  great  authority  for  many 
of  its  readers;  I  am  committing  both  the  Fallacy  of  Inten- 
tionalism  and  the  Fallacy  of  Biography,  and  had  better  ex- 
plain on  what  principles  I  do  it,  or  what  evidence  there 
could  be  for  the  conclusions.  Perhaps,  however,  it  need  not 
take  long  to  dispose  of  those  two  bogeys.  I  think  the  case 
of  Ulysses,  and  indeed  the  whole  program  of  Ibsen  which 
Joyce  was  following,  reduce  the  attack  on  Intentionalism  to 
farce.  The  attack  says  that  it  doesn't  matter  what  the  author 
tried  to  do;  you  must  stick  to  what  he  succeeded  in  doing, 
because  you  can't  get  behind  the  words  on  the  page.  But 
Ibsen  (I  take  it  this  is  too  well  known  to  need  proof)  de- 
liberately set  out  to  stimulate  the  judgment  of  his  audiences, 
and  force  them  to  agree  with  him  by  a  slow  process  of 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  141 

public  bafflement  and  turmoil.  He  thought  it  would  be 
aesthetically  unsound  to  tell  them  his  opinion,  but  he  also 
thought  this  reason  for  silence  unimportant  compared  to  a 
kind  of  political  claim  in  the  technique;  by  the  time  they 
had  realized  his  opinion,  it  would  have  become  part  of  their 
own  lives.  To  make  you  puzzle  about  his  Intention  was 
therefore  part  of  his  Intention,  and  he  would  have  thought 
an  Anti-Intentionalist  even  more  sub-human  than  the  beast- 
liest member  of  his  audiences.  If  you  have  a  theory  that  you 
mustn't  consider  the  Intention  of  such  an  author  (and 
Joyce  maintained  the  same  determined  silence  as  Ibsen  on 
crucial  points)  all  that  you  are  really  doing  is  refusing  to 
read  him. 

But  in  the  case  of  Ulysses  I  have  also  to  commit  the 
Fallacy  of  Biography;  that  is,  talk  as  though  what  had  hap- 
pened to  the  author  affects  the  value  of  the  book.  I  agree 
that  the  process  is  circuitous,  but  any  spontaneous  reader  of 
this  novel  is  forced  to  feel  that  he  wants  to  know  what  really 
happened;  somehow,  he  wants  to  know  what  basis  of  ex- 
perience Joyce  is  talking  from.  This  is  a  normal  situation, 
though  Joyce  used  his  great  powers  to  give  an  extreme  ex- 
ample of  it.  An  author  should  try  to  produce  a  good  book, 
and  a  reader  should  try  to  decide  whether  he  can  admire 
the  whole  ethos  which  has  formed  it.  But  in  this  case  we 
have  an  extra  factor;  the  autobiographer  was  too  secret  for 
his  own  purpose,  as  is  clear  from  the  absurdly  divergent  judg- 
ments which  critics  have  actually  formed.  That  is,  too  suc- 
cessful on  a  medium  time-scale;  on  short  time  he  welcomed 
a  turmoil,  and  on  long  time  I  expect  he  will  be  understood 
(as  he  intended  to  be,  after  ''exile,  silence  and  cunning"  had 
done  their  work);  but  I  deduce  from  some  number-riddles 
about  dates  and  ages  in  the  Question-and-Answer  chapter 
that  he  expected  to  be  understood  in  his  own  lifetime,  which 
he  wasn't.  We  critics  can  put  up  a  decent  excuse.  To  decide 
between  the  Jeer  Theory,  the  Acceptance  Theory,  the  Pippa 
Passes  Theory  and  so  forth  ^  is  at  bottom  a  problem  in  what 


142  EMPSON 

the  mathematicians  call  Inverse  Probability;  naturally  it  re- 
quires some  information.  It  might  seem  fatuous  to  discuss 
what  Stephen,  a  character  in  a  book,  did  after  the  book 
was  over;  especially  when  the  author  is  determined  not  to 
tell  us.  I  agree  with  the  critics  who  have  said  that  we  must 
not  take  simply  his  claim  to  be  writing  autobiography;  no 
indeed,  but  we  must  take  it  deeply.  Also  I  reahze  that  Joyce 
saw  himself  as  the  fully  detached  Flaubertian  artist,  "'paring 
his  finger-nails,"  so  that  in  one  way  it  couldn't  matter  to  him 
what  happened  next.  But  he  got  himself  into  this  position 
by  presenting  a  tremendous  moment  of  choice,  eternally 
suspended;  the  situation  is  what  we  are  to  consider,  and  in 
real  hfe,  we  may  reflect,  it  sometimes  turns  out  one  way, 
sometimes  another.  There  could  be  no  such  aesthetic  eEect 
if  it  did  not  matter  to  the  character  what  happened  next. 
Thus  we  do  need,  in  order  to  judge  the  book,  to  decide 
what  the  author  thought  the  character  ought  to  have  done 
after  the  book  was  over,  or  which  of  the  possible  later  events 
the  author  wanted  the  reader  to  regard  as  a  happy  ending. 
Now,  we  can  discuss  what  the  young  Joyce  actually  did,  using 
the  book  as  part  of  our  evidence;  arguing  from  what  he  did, 
we  may  hope  to  learn  the  scale  of  values  which  the  later 
Joyce  was  trying  to  express  in  his  book.  In  this  way,  and  in 
no  other,  we  may  hope  to  arrive  at  a  purely  critical  conclu- 
sion. Actually,  a  critic  always  goes  through  this  circuitous 
process,  but  as  a  rule  he  takes  it  in  his  stride  and  gives  it  no 
attention;  in  the  case  of  Ulysses  it  needs  to  be  given  atten- 
tion, as  is  clear  from  the  divergent  opinions  that  critics  have 
formed.  Not  surprisingly,  having  been  intended  from  the 
start  as  an  enormous  tease,  it  provides  a  good  case  to  ex- 
plode the  idea  that  Biography  is  a  Fallacy. 

Putting  so  much  weight  on  the  influence  of  Ibsen  (as 
giving  us  the  right  critical  approach,  unlike  Flaubert)  I 
ought  perhaps  to  give  some  evidence  for  it.  Joyce  learned 
Norwegian  as  a  young  man  to  read  Ibsen  in  the  original, 
and  wrote  a  florid  article  to  praise  him,  printed  in  the 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  143 

Fortnightly  Review  in  1900,  when  he  was  eighteen  (''either 
the  perception  of  a  great  truth,  or  the  opening  up  of  a 
great  question,  or  a  great  conflict  which  is  almost  independ- 
ent of  the  conflicting  actors,  and  has  been  and  is  of  far- 
reaching  importance  —  this  is  what  primarily  rivets  our  at- 
tention"). Ibsen  expressed  pleasure  at  the  article  in  a  letter 
to  William  Archer,  who  quoted  his  remarks  in  a  letter  to 
Joyce.  This  arrived  at  dawn  while  he  was  pushing  a  swing, 
in  the  garden  of  his  father's  house,  containing  a  young  lady 
described  as  the  original  of  Gerty  Macdowell,  with  whom  he 
had  been  all  night  at  a  ball.  He  remembered  it  as  one  of 
the  most  lyrical  events  of  his  hfe.  One  is  rather  baffled  by 
this  picture,  after  the  fuss  Joyce  has  made  about  the  grind- 
ing poverty  of  his  youth;  it  might  suggest,  too,  that  he  wasn't 
quite  as  raw  with  girls  as  he  gives  us  to  suppose.  But  there 
is  no  doubt  that  he  took  Ibsen  seriously;  one  might  say,  the 
belief  that  in  Ibsen  Europe  was  going  ahead  with  its  own 
large  development  was  what  prevented  him  from  being  an 
Irish  Nationalist.  It  is  also  important  I  fancy  that  the  last 
and  most  baffling  play  of  Ibsen,  When  We  Dead  Awaken, 
printed  in  1900,  was  analyzed  by  Bernard  Shaw  only  in  the 
second  edition  of  his  Quintessence  of  Ihsenism,  which  came 
out  in  1913,  just  before  Exiles  was  written.  Shaw's  account 
is  that  the  sculptor  and  his  ex-mistress  even  now,  at  the  time 
of  the  play,  might  get  "an  honest  and  natural  relation  in 
which  they  shall  no  longer  sacrifice  and  slay  each  other,"  so 
that  these  dead  can  awaken;  "she  sees  the  possibility  of  a 
miracle";  but  the  only  effect  of  the  moment  of  insight,  owing 
to  their  previous  training,  is  that  they  sacrifice  each  other 
much  worse,  this  time  finally.  I  imagine  that  Shaw  is  right, 
but  there  is  nothing  in  the  play  to  show  that  Ibsen  isn't 
being  "mystical,"  in  the  sense  of  simply  praising  the  double 
suicide  as  a  means  of  getting  to  a  less  nasty  world.  Here  we 
have  the  technique  of  dramatic  ambiguity  in  full  use, 
whether  successfully  or  not.  One  might  think  that,  under 
such  an  influence,  the  deeper  meaning  of  Ulysses  would  have 


144  EMPSON 

to  be  something  tragic;  but  Joyce  would  never  imitate 
closely,  and  I  think  he  merely  felt  that  Ibsen  had  found  how 
to  apply  to  the  modern  world  a  technique  already  prominent 
in  the  classics.  He  himself,  he  felt,  had  somehow  managed  to 
face  and  handle  the  mysterious  forces  of  life,  and  not  sac- 
rifice the  Ur-Bloom;  what  made  his  theme  an  epic  was  that 
it  was  as  deep  as  Ibsen  and  yet  not  about  death. 

To  go  back  to  the  question  whether  Biography  is  any  use, 
I  have  had  to  learn  that  I  did  not  know  enough  Biography 
when  I  wrote  my  draft  in  Peking.  I  had  admired  the  book 
greatly  as  an  undergraduate,  thinking  as  we  all  did,  because 
we  were  told  so,  that  it  was  defiantly  pointless;  and  then 
reading  it  again  twenty  years  later  I  thought  it  obviously  had 
a  great  deal  of  point  —  the  trouble  was  simply  that  the  ex- 
pounders hadn't  experienced  what  Joyce  was  talking  about. 
Irritated  by  the  intensely  snooty  gloom  which  they  evidently 
thought  smart,  I  supposed  instead  a  Joyce  who  was  above 
the  struggle  and  could  look  back  benignly  because  he  knew 
the  happy  end  of  it.  I  now  gather  that  the  truth  is  more 
interesting  than  either  of  these  extremes.  I  began  to  gather 
this,  without  needing  more  Biography  than  the  dates  of 
writing  (but  these  seem  essential),  by  reading  the  disgusting 
play  Exiles  J  which  he  wrote  just  before  settling  down  to  the 
final  version  of  Ulysses.  As  to  the  earlier  versions,  I  take  it 
that  the  remarks  which  Joyce  sometimes  let  drop  were 
literally  true  but  likely  to  mislead.  No  doubt,  material  from 
the  short  story  of  that  name  proposed  for  Dubliners,  about 
the  uneventful  day  of  an  ineffectual  Mr.  Hunter,  got  in- 
corporated into  some  of  the  wanderings  of  Bloom  in  the 
middle  of  the  book.  By  1914  he  had  completed  the  Portrait 
in  its  final  form,  after  shortening  the  first  draft  drastically 
in  rewriting;  presumably  he  now  ended  the  story  where  he 
did  because  he  had  already  decided  that  Ulysses  would  carry 
the  sequel,  the  final  crisis  of  his  development.  In  between 
(during  the  first  three  months  of  1914,  says  Mr.  Herbert 
Gorman)  he  wrote  Exiles. 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  145 

It  is  about  an  Irish  author  who  has  sacrificed  a  career  at 
home  out  of  devotion  to  his  art;  this  not  unfamihar  figure 
is  now  visiting  Dubhn  with  his  wife,  and  they  meet  an  old 
friend  who  has  achieved  worldly  success.  The  hero  suspects 
the  wife  feels  she  would  have  been  happier  if  she  had  mar- 
ried the  friend.  He  tells  her  to  go  to  bed  with  the  friend, 
ostensibly  to  satisfy  this  part  of  her  nature;  meanwhile  he 
displays  torment  about  the  process  to  both  of  them,  and 
insists  on  trying  to  make  them  tell  him  exactly  what  they 
did  to  each  other  (Did  he  touch  you  here?  —  it  is  carried  out 
like  Joyce's  savage  parodies  of  confession  to  a  priest);  if 
only  he  knows  everything,  he  keeps  saying  in  a  tightlipped 
manner,  he  won't  mind  so  much.  The  play  presumes  that 
the  audience  greatly  admire  this  hero,  as  an  example  of  the 
author's  own  noble  behavior;  whereas  he  is  obviously  only 
torturing  the  other  characters,  because  he  feels  sulky  and 
resentful.  Mr.  Harry  Levin  well  remarked  about  this  that 
"no  playwright  can  afford  to  be  a  solipsist";  the  play  is  un- 
produceable.  Joyce  of  course  had  every  right  to  feel  keenly 
and  sometimes  blow  off  steam  about  the  privations  of  the 
way  of  life  which  he  had  chosen  with  so  much  courage. 
What  is  surprising  about  Exiles  is  to  find  him  obsessed  by 
a  contorted  attitude  to  sexual  jealousy,  hardly  less  so  than 
Proust,  though  he  let  it  interfere  with  his  major  work  much 
less  than  Proust  did.  I  can  claim,  at  any  rate,  that  an  im- 
pulse to  adventurous  treatment  of  the  Eternal  Triangle  was 
pressing  on  his  mind  when  he  started  Ulysses;  the  literal 
story  about  Bloom  seemed  to  him  more  dramatic  than  many 
critics  have  supposed.  But  one  can  hardly  regard  him  as 
above  the  struggle. 

We  need  to  realize,  I  think,  that  this  effect  of  resentment 
was  an  accidental  result  of  trying  to  do  something  much 
more  complex;  to  write  a  Profound  Play,  like  Euripides  and 
Shakespeare  as  well  as  Ibsen,  which  would  have  university 
lectures  given  on  it  in  later  years.  In  such  a  pla}^  as  Joyce 
knew  very  well,  being  himself  an  intellectual  type  of  critic, 


146  EMPSON 

there  has  to  be  a  series  of  ''levels"  of  understanding,  with 
little  traps  to  force  a  member  of  the  audience  from  his 
present  level  to  the  next  one,  and  all  the  levels  somehow 
affect  the  audience  though  perhaps  no  one  till  long  after 
can  see  them  all  clearly.  Such  was  the  way  he  approached  the 
theatre,  and  he  was  plumb  right.  It  is  impressive  to  see  such 
a  mind  setting  out  to  do  in  full  consciousness  what  the  old 
masters  presumably  did  by  instinct.  But,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  he  was  very  liable  to  make  a  complete  mess  of  this 
complicated  technique;  we  need  not  be  surprised  that  he  got 
into  a  situation  where  the  audience,  at  all  levels,  only  think 
the  author  needs  kicking.  He  went  stubbornly  on  to  apply 
the  same  technique  on  a  grander  style  in  Ulysses^  in  my 
opinion  with  success;  but  one  had  better  admit  how  very 
bad  the  play  was,  because  that  helps  one  to  recognize  the 
interest  and  difficulty  of  what  he  was  trying  to  do. 

However,  granting  that  he  wasn't  in  such  a  bad  state  of 
mind  as  his  hero,  we  still  want  to  know  what  his  state  of 
mind  was.  By  good  luck  (and  by  devoted  effort  under  the 
German  Occupation  of  France)  some  notes  which  he  wrote 
while  preparing  to  write  the  play  Exiles  have  survived.  They 
can  best  be  described,  I  think,  by  a  savage  phrase  of  his  own: 
''I  smell  the  public  sweat  of  monks."  They  smack  of  no 
direct  experience  of  the  situation  he  is  to  handle;  and  they 
suggest  a  very  possessive  type  of  mind,  such  as  would  have 
found  the  situation  very  painful.  Even  in  these  secret  notes, 
he  is  taking  care  not  to  let  himself  know  whether  Bertha 
and  Robert  copulate  or  not  in  the  absurdly  brief  time  which 
the  plot  makes  available  to  them;  this  was  one  of  the  "prob- 
lems" which  the  audience  were  to  go  away  discussing.  Igno- 
rance of  contraceptives  is  also  firmly  pretended,  so  as  to  raise 
a  further  "problem"  about  whether  they  are  going  to  have 
a  child  ("Bertha  is  reluctant  to  give  the  hospitality  of  her 
womb  to  Robert's  seed"  and  so  on).  The  tone  of  a  virgin 
priest  preparing  a  confessional  manual  seems  astonishingly 
prominent: 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  147 

As  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  act  otherwise,  externally, 
by  friction,  or  in  the  mouth,  the  question  needs  to  be 
scrutinized  still  more  (Joyce's  italic).  Would  she  allow  her 
lust  to  carry  her  so  far  as  to  receive  his  emission  of  seed 
in  any  other  opening  of  the  body  where  it  could  not  be 
acted  upon,  when  once  emitted,  by  the  forces  of  her  secret 
flesh? 

He  surveys  cuckoldry  through  the  literature  of  the  ages  and 
shows  that  a  new  treatment  of  it  is  coming  into  vogue  in 
various  languages  —  the  poor  old  brutal  husband  has  now 
become  the  most  interesting  corner  of  the  triangle.  There 
are  a  few  personal  references;  we  find  him  noting  gloomily: 

Bodkin  died.  Kearns  died.  In  the  convent  they  called  her 
the  man-killer  (woman-killer  was  one  of  her  names  for 
me).  I  live  in  soul  and  body. 

One  cannot  help  feeling  rather  disgusted  with  such  a  mind, 
incessantly  superstitious  and  resentful,  but  anyhow  it  is 
obviously  working  on  something  that  really  happened.  (Also 
it  has  a  decisive  saving  quality;  it  is  determined  to  work  all 
its  bothers  into  something  eternal  because  universally  true.) 
The  play  treats  an  almost  insane  degree  of  secretiveness  as 
merely  normal  in  domestic  life;  thus  the  hero  every  morning 
unlocks  and  relocks  the  letter-box  affixed  to  the  front  door; 
after  the  distribution  of  letters,  the  members  of  the  house- 
hold lock  up  what  they  have  received.  Maybe  he  put  this  in 
to  screw  up  the  ''atmosphere"  and  not  because  he  took  it 
for  granted,  but  one  can't  be  sure. 

However,  in  stark  contrast  to  this  exacerbated  possessive- 
ness,  an  idea  of  extreme  generosity  was  also  haunting  his 
mind: 

Bertha  wishes  for  the  spiritual  union  of  Richard  and  Rob- 
ert, and  believes  that  union  will  only  be  effected  through 
her  body,  and  perpetuated  thereby.  .  .  .  The  bodilv  pos- 
session of  Bertha  by  Robert,  repeated  often,  would  cer- 
tainly bring  into  almost  carnal  contact  the  two  men.  Do 
they  desire  this?  To  be  united,  that  is,  carnally  through 


148  EMPSON 

the  person  and  body  of  Bertha,  as  they  cannot,  without 
dissatisfaction  and  degradation,  be  united  carnally  man  to 
man  as  man  to  woman? 

This  intention  of  Bertha  was  left  pretty  obscure  when  he 
came  to  write  the  play;  not  unreasonably,  she  does  little  but 
complain,  and  even  the  notes  speak  of  her  "mental  paral- 
ysis." But  it  is  working  strongly  in  the  husband's  mind,  and 
the  lover  has  cottoned  onto  this  in  the  seduction  scene: 

Rob.  He  has  left  us  alone  here  at  night,  at  this  hour, 
because  he  longs  to  know  it  —  he  longs  to  be  delivered. 
Bertha.  From  what? 
Rob.  From  every  law.  Bertha,  from  every  bond.  .  .  . 

Richard  indeed  makes  a  lot  of  it  in  his  tormenting  behavior 
to  Robert  the  next  day: 

Rich.  When  I  saw  your  eyes  this  afternoon  I  felt  sad. 
Your  humility  and  confusion,  I  felt,  united  me  to  you  in 
brotherhood.  (He  turns  half  round  towards  him).  At  that 
moment  I  felt  our  whole  life  together  in  the  past,  and  I 
longed  to  put  my  arm  around  your  neck.  ...  In  the  very 
core  of  my  ignoble  heart  I  longed  to  be  betrayed  by  you 
and  by  her  —  in  the  dark,  in  the  night  —  secretly,  meanly, 
craftily.  I  longed  for  that  passionately  and  ignobly,  to  be 
dishonoured  for  ever  in  love  and  in  lust  ...  to  be  for  ever 
a  shameful  creature  and  to  build  up  my  soul  again  out  of 
the  ruins  of  its  shame. 

In  general,  where  the  only  holy  or  classy  pleasure  is  inflicting 
and  gloating  over  torture,  a  merely  sexual  scoptophilia  is  the 
very  lowest  pleasure  of  all.  And  to  be  low  is  exciting  in  itself, 
for  one  thing  because  it  is  ''taking  a  dare";  we  get  a  lot  of 
that  in  the  mind  of  Bloom.  Richard  also  says,  more  prac- 
tically, that  he  wants  her  to  be  unfaithful  to  make  her  like 
himself:  ''She  has  spoken  always  of  her  innocence,  as  I  have 
spoken  of  my  guilt,  humbling  me."  Even  this  he  can  express 
generously,  when  he  reproaches  himself  for  being  jealous 
and  "making  her  life  poorer  in  love."  The  secret  notes  pre- 
tend to  blame  him  at  one  point,  as  Bertha  does,  via  the 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  149 

paradoxes  about  freedom:  *'he  wishes,  it  seems,  to  feel  the 
thrill  of  adultery  vicariously  and  to  possess  a  bound  woman 
Bertha  through  the  organ  of  his  friend";  but  in  general  these 
notes  are  monolithically  pro-Richard:  ''Every  step  advanced 
by  humanity  through  Richard  is  a  step  backwards  by  the 
type  which  Robert  stands  for."  I  take  it  that  the  aura  of 
horror  about  the  intention  of  Richard  is  meant  to  express 
the  tragic  situation  usual  for  an  innovator  in  morals;  what 
his  feelings  drive  him  into  is  really  an  advance,  but  even  to 
himself,  not  only  to  the  rest  of  his  society,  it  appears  an 
unnatural  wrong.  We  may  impute  to  him  the  heroism  of 
Huck  Finn,  who  says,  ''All  right;  I'll  go  to  Hell,"  when  he 
decides  out  of  love  to  help  the  escape  of  the  slave.  This  I 
think  is  what  Ibsenite  profundity  requires,  and  it  explains 
why  Joyce  gave  himself  what  seems  a  very  unnecessary  warn- 
ing in  the  secret  notes:  "The  greatest  danger  in  the  writing 
of  this  play  is  tenderness  of  speech  or  of  mood."  That  would 
be  awfully  embarrassing;  much  better  call  the  play  a  "rough- 
and-tumble"  between  Masoch  and  de  Sade  (the  notes  dash- 
ingly write  out  their  titles  at  full  length ) . 

The  situation  that  Joyce  is  envisaging,  especially  in  the 
note  about  Bertha  wanting  their  spiritual  union,  is  clearly 
fundamental  to  Ulysses.  Here  is  the  healing  process  through 
which  Bloom  hopes  even  yet  to  produce  a  son.  What  Joyce 
has  in  view  is  a  startling  transformation  of  the  Eternal 
Triangle;  from  being  one  of  the  inevitable  grounds  of  greed 
and  aggression  it  becomes,  one  would  suppose,  the  highest 
or  most  evolved  of  all  forms  of  human  intimacy.  However 
much  the  relations  of  Bloom  and  Stephen  become  a  mockery 
of  this  idea,  Joyce  had  at  least  once  taken  it  seriously.  How 
easily,  indeed,  one  can  imagine  the  Ibsenites  calling  it  the 
New  Love,  except  that  that  would  have  been  "going  so  very 
far";  I  gather  it  is  still  not  treated  in  novels,  and  would  be 
considered  a  good  deal  more  shocking  than  homosexuality. 
Like  other  adventurous  minds,  able  to  swing  far  over  with- 
out losing  the  power  to  swing  back,  Joyce  spent  a  good  deal 


150  EMPSON 

of  time  in  laughing  self-protectively  at  his  own  past  en- 
thusiasms —  as  when  he  pretended  he  had  always  only  meant 
to  guy  AE  about  theosophy.  One  is  left  in  doubt  whether 
he  was  still  taking  it  seriously  (or  would  have  considered  it 
a  happy  ending)  when  he  came  to  write  the  novel. 

A  very  helpful  bit  of  biography,  I  think,  was  provided  by 
Mr.  Richard  Ellmann's  article  The  Backgrounds  of  Ulysses 
{Kenyon  Summer  '54).  It  seems  that  Joyce  had  a  rather  odd 
emotional  upset  during  a  visit  to  Dublin  in  1909;  not  long 
before  he  wrote  Exiles,  considering  how  slowly  his  literary 
plans  matured.  He  met  a  Vincent  Cosgrave,  ''an  arrogant 
wastrel,"  the  Ur-Lynch  with  whom  he  had  roystered,  who 
''stupefied  him  by  claiming  to  have  betrayed  Joyce  with 
Nora  in  1904";  so  Joyce  at  once  went  to  the  legendary 
house  No.  7  Eccles  St.,  where  the  Ur-Cranly  Byrne  was  then 
living,  for  comfort  and  advice.  This  period  was  when  Byrne 
got  into  the  house  without  a  key,  to  let  Joyce  in,  as  Bloom 
does  in  the  novel;  Joyce  checked  the  details  of  the  house  by 
letter  with  grotesque  care.  Byrne  in  his  own  memoir  {Silent 
Years)  describes  this  call  ("never  in  my  life  have  I  seen 
a  human  being  more  shattered")  but  won't  say  what  the 
trouble  was;  and  by  the  way  it  is  a  nuisance,  when  you  con- 
sider how  ready  some  Dubliners  are  to  give  you  a  good  story 
for  another  pint  and  then  jeer  at  you  for  beheving  it  (this  of 
course  was  what  Cosgrave  had  done)  that  Mr.  Ellmann 
doesn't  give  the  sources  for  his  assertions;  but  I  think  we 
can  feel  sure  enough  that  the  upset  mentioned  by  Byrne  had 
this  kind  of  cause.  It  turned  out,  says  Mr.  Ellmann,  that 
Joyce's  brother  Stanislaus  "had  happened  to  meet  Cosgrave 
on  the  very  night  when  Nora  rebuffed  him.  Joyce  gradually 
became  calmer  and  some  time  after  went  out  to  buy  Nora 
a  necklace,"  and  so  forth.  It  is  clear  then  that  Joyce's  mind 
was  hurled  onto  the  subject  of  cuckoldry  by  this  curious 
Dublin  boast,  to  which  he  reacted  as  if  the  idea  was  a  com- 
plete novelty;  and  then,  as  he  collected  himself,  and  one 
would  like  to  think  wondered  why  he  had  believed  it,  he 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  151 

gradually  came  to  realize  that  it  had  important  literary  pos- 
sibilities. None  of  this,  I  have  to  admit,  sounds  as  if  some- 
thing which  greatly  cleared  his  mind  on  the  subject  had 
happened  on  and  after  Bloomsday,  1904.  All  the  same,  we 
have  to  presume  that  he  acted  on  his  principles;  he  must 
have  decided,  after  delving  into  his  memories  to  examine 
his  own  character  and  its  sources,  that  something  important 
had  happened  then;  the  only  novelty  was  that  now  he  had 
learned  or  had  been  forced  to  look  at  it  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Ur-Bloom. 

As  one  considers  a  man  with  a  keen  sense  of  privacy, 
inflamed  no  doubt  by  knowing  people  like  Cosgrave,  who 
has  yet  decided  it  is  his  duty  to  lay  his  development  bare  to 
the  world,  it  seems  likely  that  to  decide  that  this  theme  for 
his  epic  was  the  right  one  brought  a  keen  sense  of  relief. 
''Thank  God  I  needn't  drag  my  wife  in,"  would  be  one  of 
the  first  reflections  of  the  novelist  famous  for  his  shameless- 
ness.  Nora,  we  are  told,  was  accustomed  to  say  that  he  had 
first  met  her  on  Bloomsday,  and  that  was  why  they  always 
had  a  party  for  it;  but  Mr.  Herbert  Gorman  asserted  that 
they  had  met  not  on  the  16th  but  on  the  10th.  She  might 
have  been  helping  to  keep  the  secret,  while  telling  the  ''es- 
sential truth,"  but  he  would  be  capable  of  keeping  the  secret 
from  her  too.  One  gathers  she  was  proud  of  his  books  but 
not  interested  in  reading  them.  Joyce  might  well  choose  the 
date  of  Bloomsday  on  some  irrelevant  ground  of  private 
magic,  not  as  the  real  start  of  the  Ur-Bloom  Incident  (it 
looks  as  if  he  had  at  least  noticed  the  Ur-Molly  when  a 
schoolboy);  and  he  needn't  have  been  much  struck  by  Nora 
at  their  first  meeting;  but  one  can  well  believe  that  the 
incident  was  brief  and  ended  with  a  bang  when  he  took 
Nora  seriously.  They  left  Ireland  together  on  the  8th  Oc- 
tober. He  must  have  heard  considerably  later,  I  think,  that 
the  Ur-Blooms  had  succeeded  in  having  a  son;  and  this 
would  not  be  likely  to  come  in  the  long  letters  of  gossip 
which  he  got  from  Dublin,  because  his  relation  with  the 


152  EMPSON 

Ur-Blooms  was  a  deep  secret;  so  I  think  he  heard  of  it 
during  this  visit  in  1909,  at  about  the  same  time  as  the 
starthng  kick  about  his  own  wife.  The  combination  would 
thrust  the  theme  on  his  mind  with  sufficient  force;  he  would 
take  it  as  an  omen,  meaning  that  the  happy  triangle  needed 
to  be  advanced  upon  with  all  his  equipment,  beginning  with 
a  historical  survey.  Always  a  recklessly  courageous  man  in 
such  matters,  he  would  have  liked,  I  think,  to  pretend  that 
they  had  all  three  been  to  bed  together,  but  then  he  realized 
that  he  did  not  know  how  to  make  that  part  up.  He  may  on 
the  other  hand,  as  Edmund  Wilson  suggested  long  ago  in 
AxeVs  Castle,  simply  have  felt  too  shy  about  the  subject  to 
describe  it  plainly.  He  seems  very  unhomosexual  and  rather 
short  even  of  ordinary  intimacy  with  other  men,  though  one 
gathers  from  Finnegans  Wake  that  he  felt  a  novelist  had 
a  duty  to  drag  the  subject  in;  to  find  himself  in  a  triangular 
relation  with  the  Ur-Bloom  would  be  striking  for  him.  After 
trying  to  look  at  the  arguments  all  round,  I  cannot  get  away 
from  feeling  that  at  least  an  approach  to  the  situation  really 
happened. 

To  be  convinced  that  his  mind  connected  Molly,  even  if 
not  Bloom,  with  a  real  and  haunting  memory,  one  has  only, 
I  submit,  to  read  the  dream,  in  the  Definitive  Biography  by 
Mr.  Herbert  Gorman,  which  he  "told  to  his  friends": 

He  saw  Molly  Bloom  on  a  hillock  under  a  sky  full  of 
moonlit  clouds  rushing  overhead.  She  had  just  picked  up 
from  the  grass  a  child's  black  coffin  and  flung  it  after  the 
figure  of  a  man  passing  down  a  side  road  by  the  field  she 
was  in.  It  struck  his  shoulders,  and  she  said  *Tve  done 
with  you."  The  man  was  Bloom  seen  from  behind.  There 
was  a  shout  of  laughter  from  some  American  journalists 
in  the  road  opposite,  led  by  Ezra  Pound.  Joyce  was  very 
indignant  and  vaulted  over  a  gate  into  the  field  and  strode 
up  to  her  and  delivered  the  one  speech  of  his  life.  It  was 
very  long,  eloquent  and  full  of  passion,  explaining  all  the 
last  episode  of  Ulysses  to  her.  She  wore  a  black  opera 
cloak,  or  sortie  de  bal,  had  become  slightly  grey  and  looked 


The  Theme  of  Ulysses  153 

like  La  Duse.  She  smiled  when  Joyce  ended  on  an  as- 
tronomical climax,  and  then,  bending,  picked  up  a  tiny 
snuffbox  in  the  form  of  a  little  black  coffin,  and  tossed  it 
towards  him,  saying  "And  I  have  done  with  you  too,  Mr. 
Joyce." 

Then  we  are  told,  very  oddly,  that  Joyce  had  a  snuffbox  like 
the  one  she  had  tossed  to  him  when  he  was  at  Clongowes 
Wood  College.  No  doubt  his  imagination  would  do  almost 
anything,  but  here  it  must  have  had  something  to  work 
upon.  '*0  Molly,  handsome  Molly,"  he  wrote,  in  a  ''parody" 
about  this  dream,  ''Sure  you  won't  let  me  die?" 


IV.   (1962) 

After  reading  Mr.  Ellmann's  biography,  I  no  longer  be- 
lieve that  Ulysses  describes  a  real  event  in  Joyce's  life  at  the 
date  he  gives.  The  question  mainly  turns  on  the  date  of 
Bloomsday;  I  realized  that  Joyce  had  stopped  Nora  in  the 
street  and  taken  her  name  and  address  on  June  10th,  so  I 
did  not  believe  that  June  16th  could  be  related  to  that  in 
his  superstitiously  literal  mind.  But  letters  were  then  ex- 
changed, and  the  16th  was  the  date  on  which  the  hotel 
employee  first  consented  to  walk  out  with  Joyce;  this  is  the 
decisive  date  from  her  side.  As  to  the  last  paragraph  of  this 
article,  I  realize  now  that  the  grammar  does  not  have  to 
mean  "Molly  had  tossed  it  to  him  while  he  was  at  the 
college";  I  regret  losing  this  interesting  picture,  but  it  is  only 
fair  to  Nora  to  admit  the  evidence  that  she  had  to  do  the 
main  work  of  healing  him  from  the  start.  All  the  same,  I 
think  most  of  my  article  stands,  and  I  still  don't  believe  that 
he  had  only  been  to  bed  with  prostitutes  before  he  met 
Nora.  Consider  the  "accommodating  widow"  in  whose 
house  the  book-title  Chamber  Music  was  found  so  funny; 
she  would  seem  about  as  much  out  of  place  in  Dubliners  as 
the  Dalai  Lama.  And  what,  on  the  other  hand,  did  Joyce 
mean  by  saying  about  Ulysses  in  later  life  that  "the  nature 


154  EMPSON 

of  the  legend  chosen  would  be  enough  to  upset  anyone's 
mental  balance"? 


NOTES 

1.  "The  Backgrounds  of  Ulysses,"  Kenyon  Review,  Summer, 

1954- 

2.  James  Joyce  s  Dublin,  by  Patricia  Hutchins.  Grey  Walls 
Press,  1950. 

3.  A  correspondent,  after  this  was  broadcast,  thought  Molly 
would  be  too  dirty  to  bother;  but  the  cautious  Bloom  seems  to 
doubt  at  one  point  whether  she  would  find  Stephen  clean 
enough.  By  the  way  if,  as  we  are  told,  Joyce  was  in  fact  at  this 
time  greatly  enjoying  the  swimming,  that  is  all  the  more  reason 
to  think  the  detail  has  some  purpose. 

4.  It  seems  he  vowed  in  about  1904  that  he  would  write  an 
epic  of  Dublin  after  ten  years;  he  settled  down  to  the  final 
version  of  Ulysses  in  1914,  and  recalled  the  vow  in  the  book. 

5.  "If  there  is  any  difficulty  in  reading  what  I  write  it  is  be- 
cause of  the  material  I  use.  In  my  case  the  thought  is  always 
simple." 

6.  Let  alone  the  Joke  Theories,  such  as  that  Joyce  had  foisted 
a  bastard  on  the  Ur-Bloom,  or  that  Nora  was  the  Ur-Milly. 


The  Yankee  Interviewer  in  Ulysses 


RICHARD     M.     KAIN 


WHATEVER  esoteric  and  symbolistic  significances  the 
book  may  have,  Ulysses  tells  us  much  about  human  nature, 
particularly  in  its  delightful  Dublin  form.  For  more  than  a 
century  the  Irish  cult  of  personality  has  found  expression 
in  anecdotes.  Dubliners  still  recall  Dr.  William  Wilde,  his 
sensational  wife  ''Speranza,"  and  his  more  sensational  son 
Oscar.  Gogarty  brings  to  life  the  master  wits  of  Trinity, 
Mahaffy  and  Tyrrell.  During  the  revival,  the  key  figures  for 
such  gossip  were  ''Willie''  Yeats  and  ''jimmy'  Joyce.  Joyce 
was  early  noted  as  a  character,  an  ''artist,"  in  the  slang  of 
the  period,  who  was  expert  at  borrowing,  and  more  expert 
at  insulting  his  seniors. 

Ulysses  is  filled  with  local  tales,  real  and  fictional,  and 
Joyce,  we  know,  never  needed  to  invent  epiphanies  when  he 
could  find  them  in  actuality.  An  event,  whether  sublime  or 
trivial,  "an  old  woman  praying,  or  a  young  man  fastening  his 
shoe,"  to  quote  his  1902  Mangan  essay,  is  enough  for  one 
"to  see  what  is  there  well  done  and  how  much  it  signifies." 
Though  he  once  characterized  his  native  city  as  a  center  of 
paralysis  —  a  hint  that  has  been  dutifully  exploited  by  com- 
mentators —  he  has  never  been  accused  of  being  deaf  to 

RICHARD  M.  KAIN  tcdches  a  course  on  Joyce  at  the  University  of 
Louisville,  where  he  is  Professor  of  English.  He  has  published 
Fabulous  Voyager:  James  Joyce's  "Ulysses"  and  collaborated  on 
Joyce:  The  Man,  the  Work,  the  Reputation.  Mr.  Kain  is  now  a 
Fulbright  Professor  in  Italy. 


156  KAIN 

local  anecdote.  During  Bloomsday  we  hear  of  the  Hamlet 
theory  of  Stephen  Dedalus  (actually  James  Joyce),  of  how 
the  Phoenix  Park  murders  were  scooped  by  the  journalist 
Ignatius  Gallaher  (actually  Fred  Gallaher),  of  the  com- 
ments on  Stephen  by  Professor  Magennis  (actually  Pro- 
fessor Magennis).  The  hst  is  endless,  and  much  of  the 
Dublin  background  has  been  skillfully  recreated  by  Richard 
Ellmann,  as  well  as  by  other  scholars. 

One  episode  has  not  been  hitherto  noticed.  At  the  office 
of  the  Freeman  s  Journal  on  the  uneventful  morning  in  1904 
a  discussion  of  oratory  is  interrupted  by  an  anecdote  about 
Stephen  Dedalus  which  J.  J.  O'Molloy  has  heard  from  Pro- 
fessor Magennis:  ''A.E.  has  been  telling  some  yankee  inter- 
viewer that  you  came  to  him  in  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning  to  ask  him  about  planes  of  consciousness."  The 
professor,  who  in  fact  had  been  kind  to  Joyce  at  University 
College,  knew  his  man  well  enough  to  wonder  whether  it 
might  have  been  a  leg-pull.  Joyce  would  love  this  tale,  both 
because  it  is  enigmatic,  and,  more  importantly,  because  it  is 
about  himself. 

The  story  was  told  by  the  yankee  nine  years  later.  In 
Irish  Plays  and  Playwrights  (1913),  Professor  Cornehus 
Weygandt  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  presented  his 
first-hand  interpretations  of  modern  Irish  writers,  gained 
largely  during  his  visit  to  Dublin  in  1902.  He  was  thus  one 
of  the  earliest  American  pilgrims  to  literary  Dublin,  and  one 
of  the  first  to  notice  James  Joyce,  albeit  without  using  the 
name.  In  his  chapter  on  Russell  Professor  Weygandt  illus- 
trated the  influence  and  the  versatility  of  ''A.E."  by  telling 
how  a  boy  waited  for  him  late  one  night  on  a  street  corner. 
Too  timid  to  come  to  the  poet,  the  young  man  had  to  be 
questioned  as  to  which  of  Russell's  diverse  fields  — eco- 
nomics, mysticism,  or  literature  —  interested  him.  It  was,  of 
course,  literature.  Russell  found  Joyce  "an  exquisite  who 
thought  the  literary  movement  was  becoming  vulgarized." 
Moreover,  he  had  become  "infected  with  Pater's  Relative/' 


^    -   y^      ^      ^/fe        {U-.^    ^      ^        &uj 

CUU    ^     ..^.r.^^^.     e^     U^    3  JU:    ^.^ 


Manuscript  pages  of  ''Gas  from  a  Burner"  described  in 
the  essay  by  Robert  Scholes  on  ''The  Broadsides  of 
James  Joyce.*'  Joyce  wrote  this  pasquinade  in  1912, 
upon  his  departure  from  hehnd.  The  manuscript, 
which  was  among  the  Joyce  papers  purchased  from  the 
widow  oi  Stanislaus  Joyce  by  Cornel]  Vniveisity,  also 
throws  some  hght  on  how  Joyce  obtained  the  set  of 
page  proofs  of  Dubliners  printed  by  Falconer.  The  sec- 
ond draft  of  "Gas  from  a  Burner"  is  written  on  the 
hack  of  an  unsigned,  typed  agreement  in  which  Joyce 
agreed  to  revise  the  proofs  of  Dubliners  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  pubhsher,  MaunseJ  and  Company.  Repro- 
duced by  courtesy  of  the  Cornell  University  Librar}^. 


tA-fta-''2>C_ 


JUAiruCai-      (X*^        y#*t-    *      XM^Lxt-tu. 


]   hJLai    kit.,   uJ,  uH-j  -•- -c-    i^^.'w^  ; 
p^jt     0    -^-^    rtL      ^^     a^    fi^^^     £^i^     Ait.,.^ 

1-^  Amji^,  **y      ^^^      /<^/      if.^,^    .K*;^  ^/f^^     /C 

J  ^c^-*-    ^""    ;^^      ^     y^t^^      JLSiju^. 

i7A^     J?      M^^     iri.     tU      C^'*^y^.o.^.^   ^^4^    ct^^     ^/yi- 


.iu. 


Pf.,-,.  y.v.y    y^.Ur  ^^t  -s..,^U 


'/  .  —  I  <i-  II  ■■rrnw" 


Vc. 


^rvv, 


A  ,      /v-^  ^-^r-^l',   Ax./v:^   ^^-y4i.i 


,Ilirw-<,.J    #..><iLJUr<,    »-J3.^Z. 


»^       I  ■  ■  I  mn    a  Jfci^MWifc.>*""V>*ii  ■ill  i^-<h^<jML^iwaM. .    II  II 


Y*^4T^f^  t^::a^ 


/ie    .'..«^»--'-    to 


'^'^'-^K    j^^     fy)  f.i^i 


TivJ^   nA**-^    "^-^VP^ 


T'  v<-*-^    -'  ^  /^   "i  .~^c  .-vx^    '^'.*'    ^  '^-'     •.    '^«/  . 


:.-.t^; 


fe.v. 


Ir^ 


,1  /  .,  .6...>-*^^ 


v_^. 


I  H  .THatTTiiWiii  \  •  I*' r-T  •  •  '"f  *►  -fra.  /^jr — '  '- 

I  fvr     b.     ..     rr        ^^        ^-^■f<    ^i,     --^    Ar-M^T"^ 


■'I 


T6..    v^^ 


'^^  -r"  "^^  --  '^  *^^  "--r/^ 


;•/•   >     <■ 


'■'*-        .^ 


..f^>^> 


V'.- 


r'-C 


«. 

U 


.   ^,^ — . 

— .  / 'V  ' 


..  ..  ; 


^xtcL^'i^     -tH^t^-  V'O^ui^^r-L, 


^^^ 


Photograph  of  James  Joyce  by  Berenice  Ahhott,  ca.  1930 


The  Yankee  Interviewer  in  Ulysses  157 

as  was  borne  out  by  his  reaction  to  Russell.  When  he  learned 
that  A.E.  sought  the  absolute,  *'he  again  sighed,  this  time 
regretfully,  and  said  decidedly  that  *A.E/  could  not  be  his 
Messiah,  as  he  abhorred  the  Absolute  above  everything  else." 
This  is  the  point  of  Russell's  remark  to  Sarah  Purser  in  a 
letter  of  August  15,  1902,  quoted  by  Richard  Ellmann:  *'I 
wouldn't  be  his  Messiah  for  a  thousand  million  pounds.  He 
would  always  be  criticising  the  bad  taste  of  his  deity." 
Professor  Weygandt  concluded  his  anecdote  with  an  echo 
of  the  final  exit  of  Marchbanks  in  Candida:  *'So  the  boy  — 
he  was  not  yet  twenty-one  —  went  out  into  the  night  with, 
I  suppose,  another  of  his  idols  fallen."  Though  an  idol  may 
have  fallen,  with  "A.E."  turning  out  to  be  another  Morrell, 
the  young  poet,  like  Shaw's  Marchbanks,  had  his  secret.  We 
have  been  exploring  this  secret  for  almost  fifty  years  now, 
often  with  frustration,  but,  happily,  more  frequently  with 
delight. 


8 
The  Happy  Hunting  Ground: 

SHAKESPEAREAN  DRAMATIS   PERSONAE   IN   THE    ''SCYLLA 
AND    CHARYBDIS''    EPISODE    OF    JAMES    JOYCe's   ULYSSES 


LENN  AM 


"Shakespeare  is  the  happy  hunting  ground 
of  all  minds  that  have  lost  their  balance.'' 

Ulysses 

JOYCE'S  fascination  for  Shakespeare  and  his  use  of 
him  fuse  in  the  ''Scylla  and  Charybdis"  episode  of  Ulysses.^ 
In  that  section  the  Shakespearean  parallels,  allusions,  echoes 
and  references  are  ordered  into  a  pattern,  rich  in  detail,  rare 
in  texture  and  weighted  with  symbolic  complexity.  Elucida- 
tion of  the  meaning  of  ''Scylla  and  Charybdis,"  in  relation 
to  the  work  as  a  whole,  has  been  the  subject  of  several 
studies.  This  essay  does  not  attempt  to  work  that  extremely 
fertile  ground.^  It  is  simply  concerned  with  the  structure  of 
the  episode  and  in  particular  with  a  structural  pattern  which 
has  so  far  escaped  notice. 

Gathered  in  the  office  of  the  Chief  Librarian  of  the  Na- 
tional Library,  Kildare  Street,  at  2  p.m.  on  the  afternoon 
of  16  June,  1904,  are  Thomas  Lyster  (the  Director),  Wil- 
ham  Kirkpatrick  Magee  (Assistant  Librarian),  Richard  Best 
(Assistant  Librarian),  George  Russell  (Poet  and  Mystic), 
and  Stephen  Dedalus  (Schoolmaster).  To  his  companions 
Stephen  Dedalus  propounds  a  theory  concerning  Shake- 
speare's life  and  its  relationship  to  his  works.  The  subject 

TREVOR  LENNAM  tedckes  at  the  University  of  New  Brunswick  and 
in  1962  was  in  residence  at  the  Shakespeare  Institute  in  Stratford- 
upon-Avon. 

158 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  159 

is  of  special  interest  to  Stephen  for  two  reasons:  first,  he 
considers  Shakespeare  an  example  of  creative  genius,  a  role 
to  which  he  himself  aspires;  and  second,  he  feels  that  un- 
ravelling the  facts  of  Shakespeare's  life  will  provide  evidence 
for  his  own  aesthetic  theory,  especially  the  central  place  in 
it  of  the  artist  as  creator. 

Stephen's  exposition,  which  is  a  series  of  dramatic  and 
dubious  revelations,  artfully  contrived  and  persuasively 
argued,  is  subject  to  a  number  of  interruptions.  Lyster  comes 
and  goes  upon  official  duties;  Russell  discreetly  withdraws, 
excusing  himself  on  literary  business;  a  newcomer,  Malachi 
Mulligan,  joins  the  company;  and  Leopold  Bloom  makes  a 
fleeting  appearance. 

By  the  afternoon  of  16  June,  1904,  we  have  come  to  know 
a  good  deal  about  Stephen,  Mulligan  and  Bloom.  Of  Russell 
we  have  had  only  the  briefest  glimpse,  as  he  emerged  from 
the  Vegetarian  Restaurant  a  little  after  one  o'clock,  ac- 
companied by  an  attentive  woman,  and  wheeled  his  bicycle 
up  the  street,  in  all  probability  on  his  way  to  the  library 
{16^),  The  Librarians,  however,  are  fresh  figures  on  the  vast 
canvas  of  Ulysses. 

Thomas  W.  Lyster,  it  seems,  was  a  conscientious  and  effi- 
cient librarian,  dedicated  to  the  service  of  his  profession  and 
to  Irish  scholarship.  He  was,  at  this  time,  forty-nine  years  of 
age  and  had  been  the  Director  of  the  National  Library  since 
1895.  ^^  ^^s  ^^^"  described  as  ^'Dowden's  most  ardent  disci- 
ple," and  was  apparently  given  to  echoing  his  master  with 
enthusiastic  repetitiousness.  This  tedious  pedantry  coupled 
with  only  a  rudimentary  sense  of  humour  made  him  rather  a 
vulnerable  figure  of  fun.^ 

William  Kirkpatrick  Magee,  better  known  under  his  pseu- 
donym John  Eglinton,  joined  the  Staff  of  the  National  Li- 
brary in  1900.  He  had,  by  the  time  of  this  meeting,  already 
made  his  mark  as  a  subtle  thinker,  essayist  and  critic.  He  was 
the  editor  of  Dandy  the  magazine  to  which  Stephen  Dedalus 
hoped  to  contribute  his  article  on  Shakespeare,  and  the  au- 


l6o  LENNAM 

thor  of  Two  Essays  on  The  Remnant  (1894)  ^^^  Pebbles 
from  a  Brook  (1901),  works  which  Stephen  acknowledges 
having  read.  Although  a  contributor  to  the  Irish  Literary 
Revival,  Eglinton  was  also  one  of  its  most  stringent  critics. 
He  did  not  share  Russell's  confidence  "in  the  regeneration 
of  the  Irish  people  by  inducing  'spirituality'  into  their  life/' 
nor  the  poet's  enthusiasm  for  the  Irish  Peasantry.  ''His  chief 
concern  was  with  the  individual  thinker,  the  man  who  forces 
himself  to  push  aside  facile  solutions  and  popular  dogmas 
in  order  to  confront  fundamental  issues  without  a  compro- 
mise." ^  Reticent,  modest,  independent  and  with  a  notable, 
if  somewhat  exclusive,  literary  reputation,  John  Eglinton  is 
Stephen's  chief  opponent  in  the  argument  which  follows. 

The  third  Librarian,  Richard  Irvine  Best,  was  the  young- 
est and  newest  member  of  the  Staff.  He  was  later  to  make  a 
reputation  as  a  scholar  in  Celtic  Studies.  He  had  already  by 
1903  brought  out  a  translation  of  H.  d'A.  de  Jubainville's 
The  Irish  Mythological  Cycle  and  Celtic  Mythology^  the 
first  of  his  many  books  which  were  to  contribute  to  the  Re- 
vival. In  1904,  none  the  less.  Best  appeared  to  his  contempo- 
raries as  a  literary  dilettante  rather  than  a  scholar.  His  en- 
thusiasm for  Wilde,  his  sartorial  affectations,  prim,  mincing 
manner  and  "beautiful  shining  hair  and  features  so  fine  and 
delicate"  ^  all  combined  to  give  the  impression  of  an  aesthete 
and  a  fop. 

To  these  three  Librarians  and  to  Russell  until  he  exits, 
Stephen  expounds  his  Shakespeare  theories.  Their  reactions 
are  varied.  Lyster  is,  between  his  departures  and  returns,  po- 
litely curious;  Best  is  enthusiastic  and  intrigued;  Eglinton  is 
sceptical  and  critical.  Russell  alone  is  uninterested.  After 
registering  a  protest  at  "this  prying  into  the  family  life  of  a 
great  man"  and  scornfully  suggesting  that  it  is  "interesting 
only  to  the  parish  clerk"  {i8y),  he  excuses  himself  and 
leaves. 

Although  Stephen's  remaining  auditors  are  very  willing  to 
hear  him  out,  he  regards  them  with  some  hostility.  Lyster's 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  161 

obsequious  affability  is  observed  by  Stephen  and  recorded 
in  his  thought-stream  with  mocking  emphasis.  Best's  youth- 
ful and  effeminate  appearance,  his  jejune  aestheticism  and 
his  verbal  inanities  are  all  sharply  and  contemptuously  de- 
lineated. As  for  Eglinton,  his  keen  and  critical  wit  and  his 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare  very  quickly  distinguish  him,  in 
Stephen's  mind,  as  the  main  opponent  to  whom  he  must  ad- 
dress his  theory. 

All  four  listeners  have  two  attributes  in  common  which 
vex  Stephen.  They  have  already  established,  or,  in  the  case 
of  Best,  begun  to  establish,  a  literary  reputation.  Further, 
they  have  all  identified  themselves,  in  one  way  or  another, 
with  the  Irish  Literary  Renaissance,  a  movement  which  Ste- 
phen professes  to  despise  and  from  which  he  has  scornfully 
dissociated  himself.  Stephen  uneasily  faces  his  literary  foes. 
Envious  of  their  assured  positions  and  their  growing  reputa- 
tions, he  masks  his  isolation  and  discontent  with  calculated 
arrogance  and  barbed  hostility.  In  doing  so,  he  once  more 
assumes  the  role  of  Hamlet,  whose  predicament  he  has  al- 
ready identified  with  his  own. 

Both  the  Dedalus-Hamlet  and  the  Bloom-Shakespeare 
parallels  have  been  thoroughly  explored:  neither  needs 
further  treatment  here.  No  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  however, 
has  suggested  that  in  the  "Scylla  and  Charybdis"  episode 
some  further  identifications  may  be  made  with  the  char- 
acters of  Shakespeare's  plays.  These  are:  Lyster  with  Polo- 
nius,  Eglinton  with  Laertes,  Best  with  Osric,  and  Russell 
with  the  Ghost.  Mulligan,  as  I  shall  endeavour  to  show, 
plays  the  Fool. 

The  glimpses  that  we  have  of  Russell  are  of  a  figure  deep 
in  shadow.  His  face  is  ''bearded  amid  darkgreener  shadow" 
(182).  He  ''oracled  out  of  his  shadow"  (1S3).  He  "rose  from 
shadow"  (1S9).  At  one  point  Stephen  has  a  mock  vision  of 
Russell  sitting  cross-legged  under  an  umbrel  umbershoot 
ringed  by  disciples  and  communing  with  the  spirit  world, 
"hesouls,  shesouls,  shoals  of  souls.  Engulfed  with  wailing 


162  LENNAM 

creecries,  whirled,  whirling,  they  bewail"  (189).  He  has  little 
to  contribute  to  the  argument.  When  he  does,  his  state- 
ment is  ''oracular."  After  one  disapproving  intervention  of 
Russell's,  Stephen  repeats  to  himself  Hamlet's  question  put 
to  the  voice  from  the  cellarage,  ''Art  thou  there  true- 
penny?" ^  Like  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet  Russell  makes  only  a 
brief  stay.  Uninterested  in  Stephen's  thesis,  he  takes  his 
leave  "more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger,"  we  may  be  sure.  He 
gives  his  reason,  "I  am  afraid  I  am  due  at  the  Homestead" 
(189),  which,  despite  his  phrasing,  is  perhaps  not  a  very 
"fearful  summons."  Nevertheless  he  obeys  it.  Unveihng  "his 
cooperative  watch"  he  is  as  conscious  of  the  hour  as  Hamlet's 
Ghost,  which  "faded  at  the  crowing  of  a  cock."  It  is  not 
surprising,  therefore,  to  find  that  Russell,  when  he  next  ap- 
pears (in  "Circe")  does  so  as  the  ghost  of  Mananaan  Maclir, 
clad  in  druidic  mantle  and  mumbling  with  a  "voice  of  the 
waves"  (499)/ 

Thomas  W.  Lyster  is  the  'Lord  Chamberlain'  of  the  Na- 
tional Library.  Like  the  holder  of  the  same  Office  at  Elsinore, 
he  is  a  busy,  affable  and  earnest  host.  Lyster's  frequent 
comings  and  goings  throughout  the  episode  are  similar  to 
Polonius'  appearances  and  reappearances  at  Court,  where 
domestic  and  official  duties  have  claims  upon  him.  Like 
Lyster,  Polonius  dances  attendance,  though  to  be  sure,  not 
with  such  a  variety  of  movement.  If  a  contemptuous  re- 
mark of  Hamlet's  to  the  First  Player  is  to  be  believed, 
Polonius  is  "for  a  jig  and  a  tale  of  bawdry"  rather  than  for 
the  courtly  steps  Lyster  performs.  Lyster's  zeal  in  the  service 
of  his  profession  was  notable.  Stephen  observes  him  "zealous 
by  the  door"  {182)  and  "bald,  most,  zealous"  {182).  Polo- 
nius, too,  is  zealous,  a  characteristic,  it  would  be  true  to  say, 
partly  responsible  for  his  undoing.  Besides  diligence,  Lyster 
shares  another  attribute  with  Polonius.  His  conspicuous  ears 
were  a  prominent  feature  of  his  bald  head  and  Stephen  ob- 
serves him  "eared,  assiduous"  {188).  His  "friendly,  earnest" 
disposition   attended   all   who   approached   him   with   any 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  163 

request,  however  trivial.  Polonius'  counsel  to  Laertes,  ''give 
every  man  thy  ear"  and  ''Take  each  man's  censure  but 
reserve  thy  judgment/'  bespeaks  his  auditive  attentiveness. 
That  Polonius  practices  v^hat  he  preaches  is  only  too  clear. 
The  Chamberlain,  assiduous  and  eared  behind  the  arras,  is 
fatally  rewarded  for  this  propensity.  Another  mutual  feature 
is  their  volubility.^  Stephen  refers  to  Lyster  as  "voluble, 
dutiful"  (198)  and  later  as  talking  "with  voluble  pains  of 
zeal,  in  duty  bound,  most  fair,  most  kind"  (198).  This  trait 
in  Polonius  is  only  too  obvious  and  needs  no  emphasis. 
Hamlet  sums  him  up  in  a  succinct  epitaph: 

Indeed  this  counsellor 
Is  now  most  still,  most  secret  and  most  grave. 
Who  was  in  Uie  a  iooUsh  prating  knave. 

[iii.iv.213-16 

It  has  already  been  noted  that  Lyster's  younger  contemporaries 
found  him  ludicrous  and  tedious  at  times,  and  certainly 
Stephen's  contempt  for  him  is  plain.  Lyster  opens  the  de- 
bate with  some  generalizations  of  Goethe  about  Shake- 
speare, the  obviousness  of  which  draws  Stephen's  sneering 
reference  to  "Monsieur  de  la  Palisse"  (182).  Polonius  is 
similarly  the  target  of  Hamlet's  unconcealed  scorn.  "That 
great  baby  you  see  there  is  not  yet  out  of  his  swaddling 
clouts"  and  "Thou  wretched  rash  intruding  fool"  are  suffi- 
cient evidence  for  it.  Hamlet's  view  of  Polonius,  the  as- 
siduous, prating  bore,  has  much  in  common  with  Stephen's 
view  of  "the  bald  pink  lollard  costard,  guiltless  though 
maligned"  {188)  Director  of  the  National  Library. 

"  'Fore  God,  my  lord,  well-spoken,  with  good  accent  and 
good  discretion,"  says  Polonius  approvingly  of  Hamlet's 
speaking  of  Aeneas'  lines  before  the  players  at  Elsinore 
(ii.ii).  And  later  Hamlet's  advice  to  the  players  confirms 
Polonius'  judgment.  The  Prince  is  an  understanding  and 
judicious  critic  with  a  penetrating  insight  into  the  player's 
art.  That  Hamlet  is  no  mere  theoretician  but  a  talented 


164  LENNAM 

mimic  as  well,  is  demonstrated  in  an  amusing  scene  when 
he  and  Horatio  are  confronted  by  Osric  (v.ii.).^  The  fashion- 
able "waterfly"  in  winged  doublet  and  feathered  cap,  whose 
posturings  and  stilted  language  are  mocked,  is  a  butt  for 
Hamlet's  gift.  In  the  'study'  or  'inner  room'  of  the  National 
Library,  Stephen  likewise  confirms  Malachi  Mulligan's  esti- 
mate of  his  histrionic  talent,  ''O,  you  peerless  mummer!" 

{197)  }" 

Stephen,  like  Hamlet,  has  a  subject  for  mockery  at  hand, 
Richard  Irvine  Best,  the  assistant  librarian.  Best  parallels 
Osric  in  several  ways.  Both  are  young,  both  are  foppish  and 
both  possess  irritating  vocal  and  gesticulatory  mannerisms. 
Best's  youthfulness  is  emphasized.  He  is  "young,  mild,  light" 
{iS^),  ''a.  blond  ephebe"  (196),  and  a  "douce  youngling" 
{21^).  Osric  is  similarly  represented.  "Enter  young  Osricke" 
{Folio  v.ii),  "Give  them  the  Foyles  yong  Osricke"  {Folio 
v.ii)  and  "My  Lord,  his  majesty  commended  him  to  you  by 
young  Osric"  (v.ii).  Osric's  sartorial  refinements  have  already 
been  mentioned.  Best,  too,  is  a  dandy.  Stephen  thinks,  "You 
would  give  your  five  wits  for  youth's  proud  livery  he  pranks 
in"  (196),  and  elsewhere  describes  Best  as  a  "minion  of 
pleasure"  (213),  and  as  the  "well  pleased  pleaser"  (189). 
Osric  possesses  a  feathered  bonnet  and  is  much  given  to 
elegant  displays  of  it,  an  affectation  which  draws  Hamlet's 
scorn.  Best  enters  the  room  carrying  "with  grace  a  note- 
book, new,  large,  clean  and  bright"  {18^).  Later  he  is  ob- 
served "raising  his  new  book,  gladly,  brightly"  (189),  and 
"hfting  his  brilhant  notebook"  (196);  finally  "Mr.  Best  ea- 
gerlyquietly  hfted  his  book"  {208).  Nor  is  Best's  free  hand 
entirely  idle.  On  one  occasion  Stephen  watches  him  write 
"tiny  signs  in  the  air"  {18^).  These  flourishes  emulate 
Osric's  perhaps  more  expansive  gestures.  At  any  rate  they 
irritate  Stephen,  who  observes  to  himself  with  contempt, 
"His  private  papers  in  the  original"  (192). 

In  no  way  are  these  two  exquisites  more  alike  than  in 
their  language.   Osric's  affected,  ingratiating  pomposity  is 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  165 

neatly  taken  off  by  Hamlet.  Upon  the  young  courtier's  de- 
parture, Horatio  comments:  ''This  lapwing  runs  away  with 
the  shell  on  his  head."  The  Prince  replies: 

He  did  comply  with  his  dug,  before  he  sucked  it.  Thus 
has  he  —  and  many  more  of  the  same  breed  that  I  know 
the  drossy  age  dotes  on  —  only  got  the  tune  of  the  time 
and  outward  habit  of  encounter;  a  kind  of  yesty  collection, 
which  carries  them  through  and  through  the  most  fond 
and  winnowed  opinions;  and  do  but  blow  them  to  their 
trial,  the  bubbles  are  out.  [v.ii.i 93-202 

Best's  "tune  of  the  time  and  outward  habit  of  encounter" 
are,  as  Schutte  has  pointed  out,  the  aesthetic  movement 
headed  by  Pater  and  Wilde.  Certainly  he  is  an  admirer  of 
Wilde  (196)  and  appears  "to  be  trying  hard  to  imitate 
Wilde's  manner."  ^^  His  contributions,  however,  are  for  the 
most  part  feeble,  sometimes  irrelevant,  and  often  simply 
silly;  truly  a  "yesty  collection,"  words  blown  out  "upon  the 
topmost  froth  of  thought."  His  irritating  repetitive  gestures 
are  accompanied  by  equally  irritating  repetitive  statements. 
He  uses  the  phrase  "don't  you  know"  in  this  fashion,  a  habit 
which  parallels  Osric's  "My  Lord,"  "Good  Lord,"  "Sweet 
Lord."  (v.ii)  12 

About  midway  in  the  discussion  the  tempo  of  Stephen's 
exposition  increases  as  his  narrative  moves  forward  to  a 
climax.  The  excitement  is  reflected  in  the  librarians  grouped 
around  him.  They  are,  at  this  moment,  silent,  attentively 
following  the  patterns  of  Stephen's  argument  as  they  emerge 
and  cohere.  Stephen  is  very  conscious  of  the  spell  that  he  has 
cast  and  also  of  his  own  casuistry,  "They  list.  And  in  the 
porches  of  their  ears  I  pour"  (194).  He  has  still  much 
ground  to  cover,  further  revelations  to  unfold  and  more 
complex  strands  to  weave  into  the  brilliant  fabric  of  his 
exposition.  At  this  moment  of  dramatic  climax  he  is  inter- 
rupted, though,  by  an  entrance;  the  tension  is  broken.  What 
immediately  follows  is  an  entr'acte  — as  Stephen  at  once 
recognises  (195)  —which  provides  a  natural  diminution  of 


l66  LENNAM 

tension,  and  which  gives  him  a  brief  respite  before  the 
resumption  of  his  argument.  The  interrupter  and  chief 
figure  of  this  small  scene  is  his  friend  and  ''enemy"  (195) 
Malachi  Mulligan,  and  he  is  playing  the  Fool  —  'Tuck 
Mulligan"  {210)}^ 

It  is  for  Mulligan  a  familiar  role.  He  is  here  (as  his  dress 
and  behaviour  confirm)  an  'allowed'  or  'licensed'  Fool.  Ste- 
phen notes  his  "ribald  face"  (195),  ''his  head  wagging" 
(196),  his  "happy  patch's  smirk"  (214).  Mulligan  is  dressed 
and  equipped  appropriately,  "blithe  in  motley"  {195)  and 
carrying  a  "bauble,"  his  doffed  Panama  hat.  Throughout  the 
remainder  of  this  episode  Mulligan  performs  his  part.  Being 
a  'licensed'  Fool,  his  jests,  jibes  and  antics  often  have  a 
sharp  edge.  He  can  "gag  sweetly"  {20^ )  and  also  speak  with 
"honeying  mahce"  (-211).  He  can  chant  a  snatch  of  verse 
or  be  seen  "footed  featly,  trilling"  a  lewd  lyric  {21^).  He  is 
popular  with  them  all,  a  gay,  privileged,  jesting  figure  likely 
to  be,  at  any  moment,  quite  outrageous.  Fuck  Mulligan  is 
irrepressible  and  Stephen  thinks  of  him  as  "My  whetstone" 
{208).^'^  Though  Mulligan  wears  motley  (his  primrose  waist- 
coat) and  for  the  most  part  plays  the  Fool,  he  does  resort 
to  traditional  clowning.  At  the  close  of  the  episode,  for 
instance,  he  proposes  a  lascivious  jig,  "Everyman  His  Own 
Wife"  {21^)  which,  as  the  full  subtitle  and  cast  suggest, 
promises  to  be  as  bawdy  a  tale  as  any.^^ 

Before  examining  Stephen's  remaining  auditor  and  most 
formidable  opponent,  one  should  mention  two  other  figures. 
These  are  Haines,  who  is  referred  to  in  two  passages,  and 
Bloom,  who  crosses  the  threshold  "a  patient  silhouette,"  "a 
bowing  dark  figure." 

The  Englishman  Haines  had  been  at  the  Library  talking 
to  Best  a  little  before  the  discussion  began.  Best,  on  his  ar- 
rival, explains  to  the  assembled  company  that  "he  couldn't 
bring  him  [Haines]  in  to  hear  the  discussion"  and  that  he 
had  gone  to  buy  Hyde's  Love  Songs  of  Connacht.  Earlier 
that  morning  Haines,   while  walking  with   Mulligan  and 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  167 

Stephen,  had  shown  more  than  a  casual  interest  in  Stephen's 
views  on  Hamlet.  Indeed,  he  had  admitted,  "you  pique  my 
curiosity,"  and  among  other  questions  had  asked,  "Is  it 
some  paradox?"  (19).  Nor  was  this  all.  Haines  had  con- 
nected the  Martello  Tower  and  the  Sandymount  Cliffs  with 
"Elsinore  'That  beetles  o'er  his  base  into  the  sea!  "  Imme- 
diately following  this  statement  Stephen  has  a  moment  of 
revelation.  "In  the  bright  silent  instant  Stephen  saw  his 
own  image  in  cheap  dusty  mourning  between  their  gay  at- 
tires" (20).  As  Schutte  points  out,  Stephen  sees  himself  as 
Hamlet  in  mourning,  flanked  by  Mulligan  and  Haines  as 
Rosencrantz  and  Guildernstern,  each  in  gay  attire.  "Both 
are  his  enemies,  though  both  pretend  to  be  —  and  perhaps 
believe  they  are  — his  friends.  Like  Claudius'  spies,  Haines 
has  been  trying  to  pry  out  of  his  enigmatic  friend  what  is 
in  fact  the  secret  of  his  life.  Like  them  Haines  is  not  adroit 
in  his  questioning;  like  them  he  fails;  and  like  them  he  will 
not  be  present  for  the  final  self-exposure  of  the  hero."  ^^ 

The  company  in  the  inner  room  is  more  conscious  of 
Bloom's  presence.  He  is  glimpsed  by  Stephen  very  briefly 
as  he  is  attended  by  Lyster  and  conducted  to  the  newspaper 
files.  He  does  not,  however,  escape  the  Fool's  characteristic 
scurrility  (198).  When  Stephen  and  Mulligan  leave  the 
Library,  Bloom  passes  "between  them  bowing,  greeting" 
{21^).  Bloom's  relationship  to  Shakespeare  within  the  sym- 
bolic framework  of  Ulysses  has  received  extended  treatment 
in  other  studies.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  the  appearance  of 
the  player  Shakespeare,  albeit  in  a  very  minor  role,  and  as 
fleeting  as  a  ghost's,  is  not  inappropriate  to  the  drama 
enacted  in  the  'study.'  ^^ 

Once  Stephen  is  launched  upon  the  mainstream  of  his 
argument,  he  is  quick  to  perceive  that  John  Eglinton  is  his 
main  antagonist.  Lyster's  conscientious  attendance  to  Li- 
brary business  precludes  him  from  participating  to  any 
worthwhile  extent.  As  for  Best,  his  contributions  are  limited 
to  verbal  antics,  digressions  and  self-displays.  Stephen  con- 


l68  LENNAM 

temptuously  records  these  and  addresses  himself  seriously  to 
Eglinton.  It  is  with  Eglinton  that  he  duels.  The  thrust, 
parry  and  counter-thrust  of  their  debate  is  at  times  vigorous 
and  sharp.  Eglinton  plays  Laertes. 

There  are  several  parallels  which  suggest  this  identifica- 
tion. Stephen's  attitude  to  his  opponent  is  ambivalent,  a 
mixture  of  envy  and  respect.  Stephen  is  envious  of  Eglinton's 
established  and  growing  literary  reputation  and  self-con- 
sciously aware  that  his  own  creative  output  is  a  mere  ''cap- 
full  of  odes"  and  that  he  is  no  more  than  a  ''bullockbefriend- 
ing  bard."  On  the  other  hand,  Eglinton's  independence  of 
mind  and  his  critical  attitude  towards  the  excesses  of  the 
Irish  Literary  Renaissance  are  respected  by  Stephen.  Ste- 
phen has  read  Eglinton's  work  with  care  enough  to  be  able 
to  quote  it  deftly.  Hamlet's  envy  of  Laertes  is  less  easy  to 
assert.  Claudius,  of  course,  confirms  it,  but  then  he  is  a 
poor  witness: 

Sir,  this  report  of  his 
Did  Hamlet  so  envenom  with  his  envy 
That  he  couJd  nothing  do  hut  wish  and  beg 
Your  sudden  coming  o'er,  to  play  with  him. 

[iv.vii.103-6 

Nevertheless  it  cannot  be  entirely  dismissed.  As  for  the 
Prince's  goodwill  towards  Laertes,  does  he  not  say, 

Give  me  your  pardon,  Sir:  I've  done  you  wrong; 
But  pardon't,  as  you  are  a  gentleman, 

[v.ii.238-39 

as  earlier  he  had  admitted  to  Horatio, 

But  I  am  very  sorry,  good  Hoiatio, 
That  to  Laertes  I  forgot  myself; 
For  by  the  image  of  my  cause,  I  see 
The  portraiture  of  his. 

[v.ii.74-77 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  169 

Like  Stephen,  Hamlet  feels  that  his  antagonist  holds  his 
''follies  hostage"  {182).  A  wish  to  placate  and  make  amends 
is  present  in  both.  Hamlet  confides  to  Horatio,  'Til  court 
his  favour."  Stephen  courts  Eglinton  with  a  soothing  refer- 
ence to  his  published  work  {20^) ^  and  thinks,  "Flatter. 
Rarely.  But  Flatter." 

The  likeness  between  them  is  strengthened  by  the  manner 
in  which  anger  and  bitterness  are  gradually  modified.  The 
sense  of  estrangement  and  suspicion  gives  place  to  a  recon- 
ciliation. At  the  outset  of  the  episode,  a  strong  undercurrent 
of  hostility  flows  between  them.  Stephen's  observations  of 
Eglinton  are  tinged  with  malice.  He  notes  him  "glittereyed" 
{182),  his  "carper's  skull"  {188),  and  "the  bane  of  mis- 
creant eyes,  glinting  stern  under  wrinkled  brows.  A  basilisk" 
(192).  As  the  discussion  proceeds,  hostile  references  such  as 
these  are  modulated  and  then  disappear.  The  glittering  eyes 
which  remind  Stephen  of  a  serpent  are  later  associated  with 
a  pleasant  memory  of  Charenton  and  the  "Old  wall  where 
sudden  lizards  flash"  {200),  just  as  "carper"  and  "mocker" 
become  "steadfast  John"  {202).  Nor  is  this  shift  of  attitude 
evident  merely  in  Stephen.  Eglinton,  like  Laertes,  is  at  first 
antagonistic  and  does  not  conceal  his  dislike.  He  twits  Ste- 
phen's arrogance  with  "elder's  gall"  {182)  and  belittles  Ste- 
phen's intention,  "Like  the  Fat  Boy  in  Pickwick  he  wants  to 
make  our  flesh  creep"  {18^).  On  one  occasion  his  anger 
bubbles  up,  "Upon  my  word  it  makes  my  blood  boil  to 
hear  anyone  compare  Aristotle  with  Plato"  (1S4),  a  very 
Laertes-like  outburst.  Like  Laertes  who,  after  the  duel,  asks, 
"Exchange  forgiveness  with  me  noble  Hamlet,"  Eglinton's 
early  scorn  and  bitterness  are  replaced  by  a  more  sympathetic 
attitude  towards  Stephen's  theory.  Evidence  for  this  gradual 
change  of  feeling  is  surely  clinched  when  Eglinton,  imme- 
diately before  Stephen's  concluding  statement,  exclaims, 
echoing  Dumas,  "After  God  Shakespeare  created  most" 
{210).  This  is  precisely  one  of  the  basic  themes  Stephen  has 
woven  into  his  final  and  comprehensive  summary. 


lyo  LENNAM 

There  are  also  some  interesting  resemblances  between  the 
two  duels.  The  weapons  mentioned  by  Osric,  when  he 
dehvers  the  challenge,  are  rapier  and  dagger.  ''Unsheathe 
your  dagger  definitions"  (1S4),  thinks  Stephen,  shortly  be- 
fore the  argument  assumes  the  cut  and  thrust  of  debate.  As 
for  the  rapier  or  'foil/  an  unmistakable  allusion  to  it  is  made, 
as  we  shall  see  in  a  moment. 

Laertes  and  Hamlet  fight  only  three  of  the  intended  dozen 
bouts  before  the  fatal  strokes  are  exchanged.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  each  bout,  two  of  which  are  in  Hamlet's  favour, 
the  third  being  inconclusive,  either  Osric  or  Laertes  acknowl- 
edges the  outcome.  Similarly,  the  verbal  duel  between 
Stephen  and  Eglinton  has  dialectical  climaxes  which  ap- 
pear to  be  the  equivalent  of  these  moments  of  triumph.  The 
first  of  these,  which  follows  a  long  struggle  between  the 
contestants  in  which  Eghnton  holds  his  own  and  manages 
to  deliver  some  fine  thrusts,  is  the  citation  by  Stephen  of 
the  evidence  contained  in  Shakespeare's  will  of  the  bequest 
of  a  second  best  bed.  Osric's  statement,  "A  hit.  A  very 
palpable  hit,"  is  paralleled  by  Best's  rather  obvious  affirma- 
tion, "It  is  clear  that  there  were  two  beds,  a  best  and  a 
second  best"  {201).  The  second  decisive  moment  occurs 
when  Stephen  'proves'  that  Shakespeare  employed  his  own 
family  situations  in  his  plays.  Eglinton  does  not  challenge 
Stephen's  bold  assertions  but  merely  assents,  "The  plot 
thickens"  {206),  thereby  allowing  Stephen  the  point.  The 
final  and  inconclusive  bout  follows.  Stephen  extends  the 
identification  of  Shakespeare's  brothers,  Richard  and  Ed- 
mund, with  Shakespearean  villains  and  speciously  throws  in 
the  evidence  of  the  "firedrake"  knowing  it  to  be  false.  At 
this  moment  Stephen  appears  to  be  victorious.  He  notes  his 
auditors,  "Both  satisfied"  {2oy).  However,  Eglinton  then 
comments,  "Your  own  name  is  strange  enough.  I  suppose 
it  explains  your  fantastical  humour"  {208),  It  is  a  telling 
riposte.  Stephen's  confidence  ebbs  as  the  train  of  his  thought 
leads  him  to  consider  the  "Fabulous  Artificer"  and  the  ig- 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  171 

nominious  reality  of  his  own  failure  at  flight.  Far  from  being 
a  Daedalus,  the  hawk-like  man,  he  sees  himself  as  Icarus,  the 
lapwing.  Of  this  climax  ''Nothing  neither  way"  is  apt  judg- 
ment. 

The  duel  then  enters  its  final  phase.  It  is  set  off  by  a 
striking  allusion,  '7^^^  Eglinton  touched  the  foil.^^  — 
Come,  he  said,  Let  us  hear  what  you  have  to  say  of  Richard 
and  Edmund.  You  kept  them  for  the  last,  didn't  you?'' 
{208).  It  was  after  the  third  bout  that  Laertes  made  his 
fatal  thrust  with  the  'bated'  foil.  Eglinton's  challenging 
"come"  echoes  the  conventional  duelling  term  which  both 
Hamlet  and  Laertes  use  before  attacking. 

The  Hamlet  identifications  in  the  "Scylla  and  Charybdis" 
indicated  above  might  appear,  at  first  glance,  to  add  a 
gratuitous  complexity  to  the  structure  of  the  episode.  Joyce 
has,  however,  merely  extended  a  process  begun  in  "Telem- 
achus,"  where  the  Stephen-Hamlet  parallel  is  first  suggested. 
This  extension  is  not  only  artistically  appropriate,  it  is 
quite  logical.  As  Philip  Toynbee  has  observed,  the  Hamlet 
theme  "is  architectural  rather  than  musical  for  its  reap- 
pearances are  not  so  much  evocative  as  constructional."  ^^ 
By  correlating  suggestively  rather  than  in  detail  the  figures 
of  the  Librarians,  AE,  and  Gogarty  with  Shakespeare's  char- 
acters, Joyce  has  succeeded  in  intensifying  and  dramatising 
Stephen's  general  predicament,  that  of  his  isolation  from  his 
environment.  This  episode  dramatically  illustrates  his  intel- 
lectual dislocation  from  contemporaries  whose  literary  and 
artistic  interests,  far  from  forming  a  sympathetic  bond,  ap- 
pear wholly  alien  to  his  own.  Further,  the  frequency  of  the 
verbal  echoes  of  Hamlet  together  with  the  visual  effect  of 
the  advertisement-playbill  mentioned  by  Best  {18^), 

HAMLET 

ou 

LE   DISTRAIT 

Piece  de  Shakespeare 


172  LENNAM 

reinforce  the  suggestion  that  Joyce,  in  the  "Scylla  and 
Charybdis"  episode,  intended  to  keep  Shakespeare^s  play  in 
the  forefront  of  his  overall  design. 

Another  aspect  of  the  structure  of  this  episode  illuminates 
Joyce's  characterization.  The  technique  that  Joyce  employs 
here,  as  elsewhere  in  Ulysses,  is  one  of  significant  corre- 
spondences. By  correlating  the  real-life  persons  in  the  Na- 
tional Library  with  the  creations  of  Shakespeare's  imagina- 
tion, Joyce  presents  us  with  vivid  re-creations,  which  are  the 
result  of  a  controlled  balance  of  fact  and  fiction.  Thus 
Ellmann's  interpretation  of  the  sketch  of  Dr.  Richard  Best 
as  the  product  of  Joyce's  "pique  at  Best's  refusal  to  lend  him 
money  in  Dublin"  is  unacceptable  without  qualification.^^ 
As  we  have  seen,  the  portrait  of  Best  is  justified  by  its 
artistic  purpose  and  does  not  simply  spring  from  an  emo- 
tional state.  Stanislaus  Joyce  has  said  of  his  brother,  ''Justice 
towards  the  characters  of  his  own  creation,  or  imaginative 
recreation,  became  an  artistic  principle  with  him."  ^^ 

NOTES 

1.  References  to  Ulysses  (New  York:  Modern  Library,  1946) 
are  by  page  number  enclosed  in  parentheses.  References  to  Ham- 
let are  from  The  Globe  Edition  (London,  1956)  unless  other- 
wise stated. 

2.  William  M.  Schutte's  Joyce  and  Shakespeare:  A  Study  in 
the  Meaning  of  Ulysses  (New  Haven,  1957)  is  the  most  thor- 
ough and  I  am  much  indebted  to  it.  I  should  like  to  acknowledge 
also  the  helpful  discussion  and  criticism  of  Dr.  J.  K.  Johnstone. 

3.  See  Stephen  Gwynn,  Experiences  of  a  Literary  Man  (New 
York,  1926),  pp.  64-65.  For  this  and  sketches  of  the  other 
librarians  see  Mary  and  Padraic  Colum,  Our  Friend  James 
Joyce  (New  York,  1958),  pp.  28-34;  ^^^^  Schutte,  Ch.  in. 

4.  Schutte,  pp.  42-44. 

5.  George  Moore,  Salve,  cited  by  Schutte,  p.  37. 

6.  Calvin  Edwards  in  "The  Hamlet  Motif  in  Joyce's  Ulysses/' 
Western  Review,  xv  (1950),  mistakenly  takes  this  as  a  reference 
to  Bloom  hovering  outside  the  room. 


The  Happy  Hunting  Ground  173 

7.  Oliver  St.  J.  Gogarty  in  As  I  Was  Going  Down  Sackville 
Street  (London,  1937),  p.  283,  records  AE's  appearance  as  the 
ghost  in  his  own  play  ''Deirdre":  "The  golden-brown  beard  and 
full,  fresh-cheeked  face  appeared.  A  sonorous  voice  chanted  one 
long  name:  Mananann  [sic]  Mac  Lir.  It  was  the  author,  AE! 
Shakespeare  is  said  to  have  played  the  ghost  in  'Hamlet'  because 
he  had  a  fine  voice.  AE's  only  appearance  on  the  stage  was  a 
partial  appearance,  the  head  of  the  God  of  the  Waves  of  Erin, 
Mananann,  the  Son  of  Lir." 

8.  Gogarty,  pp.  8-16  gives  an  example  of  this  characteristic 
of  Lyster:  see  also  Mary  and  Padraic  Colum,  p.  30. 

9.  See  Dover- Wilson's  discussion  of  Osric's  dress  in  The  New 
Cambridge  edition  of  Hamlet  (1941),  Notes,  pp.  243-45. 

10.  See  also  p.  7,  ''Kinch,  the  loveliest  mummer  of  them  all" 
and  p.  213,  "Mournfull  mummer,  Buck  Mulligan  moaned." 

11.  Schutte,  p.  37. 

12.  Schutte  notes  that  Best  uses  this  phrase  no  less  than 
fourteen  times,  p.  38.  Osric's  varied  salutations  number  eighteen 
in  this  small  scene. 

13.  See  Schutte  for  discussion  of  Mulligan  as  Glaudius.  Ch. 
II. 

14.  In  "Circe"  Mulligan  appears  "in  particoloured  jester's 
dress  of  puce  and  yellow  and  clown's  cap  with  curling  bell  .  .  . 
a  smoking  buttered  scone  in  his  hand"  (565). 

15.  The  theatrical  jig  was  a  lyrical  farce,  written  in  rhyme 
and  sung  and  danced  to  ballad  measure,  traditionally  executed 
by  the  clown  as  an  afterpiece  to  the  Play. 

16.  Schutte,  p.  20. 

17.  Patricia  Hutchins,  James  Joyce's  Dublin  (London,  1950), 
p.  77,  notes,  "The  'discreet  vaulted  cell'  where  the  discussion 
in  Ulysses  takes  place,  may  have  been  based  on  the  room  used 
by  Mr.  Lyster,  'John  Eglinton'  and  Dr.  Best  which  lies  behind 
the  counter  and  was  only  lit  by  a  roof  light  at  the  time." 

18.  I  am  not  sure  what  it  is  Eglinton  has  touched.  It  might 
be  something  to  do  with  the  lamp,  a  foil  reflector,  or  perhaps 
a  counterfoil  lying  on  the  desk.  In  a  letter  to  me  Dr.  R.  J.  Hayes, 
the  Director  of  The  National  Library,  writes,  "the  word  'foil'  is 
not  used  in  the  National  Library,"  and  suggests,  "that  'foil'  in 
this  context  is  the  reader's  docket  handed  in  by  the  attendant 
for  the  item  which  Fr.  Dinneen  (Dineen)  required." 


174  LENNAM 

19.  "A  Study  of  James  Joyce,"  James  Joyce:  Two  Decades  of 
Criticism,  ed.  Seon  Givens  (New  York,  1948),  p.  257;  see  also 
'The  Hamlet  of  Stephen  Dedalus"  by  William  Peery,  Studies 
in  English,  University  of  Texas,  xxxi  (1952),  119. 

20.  'The  Backgrounds  of  Ulysses,"  The  Kenyon  RevieWy 
XVI  (1954),  337-38- 

21.  My  Brother's  Keeper,  ed.  Richard  Ellmann  (London, 
1958),  p.  87. 


Blake  in  Nighttown 


MORTON     D.     PALEY 


AT  a  number  of  points  in  Ulysses,  William  Blake's  intel- 
lectual presence  makes  itself  felt  through  the  consciousness 
of  Stephen  Dedalus.  The  passages  in  question  do  much  to 
establish  a  similarity  between  Stephen's  way  of  looking  at 
the  world  and  Blake's,  for  the  Blakean  material  is  not  merely 
quoted  but  used,  worked  closely  into  the  texture  of  Joyce's 
own  style.  And  even  more  striking  than  such  verbal  parallels 
are  the  broad  conceptual  resemblances  between  these  two 
mythmakers:  the  organ  symbolism  of  Jerusalem  and  Ulysses, 
the  giants  Albion  and  Finnegan  as  epitomes  of  humanity, 
London  and  Dublin  as  models  of  the  universe.  We  may  be 
tempted  to  speak  of  "influence,"  but  there  is  something  more 
important  and  alive  at  work  here.  It  would  be  more 
to  the  point  to  say  that  Joyce,  in  the  process  of  choosing  — 
and  thereby  creating  —  a  tradition,  as  every  great  artist  must, 
realized  that  Blake  participated  in  that  tradition.  There  was, 
in  addition  to  the  intrinsic  interest  of  Blake's  poetry,  the 
use  Blake  had  made  of  sources  of  symbol  and  allusion  which 
were  also  Joyce's  —  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  the 
Kabala,  Swedenborg,  Jacob  Boehme,  Milton,  Shakespeare, 
Dante,  Paracelsus.^  For  example,  we  are  not  sure  of  whether 

MORTON  D.  PALEY  tcdches  dt  The  City  College  in  New  York.  He 
has  published  poems  in  Riverside  Poetry,  Prairie  Schooner,  Chicago 
Choice  and  elsewhere.  He  is  currently  at  work  on  a  study  of  Blake's 
concept  of  Imagination. 


176  PALEY 

Joyce  has  his  own  interests  in  mind  or  Blake's  when  he  says 
in  his  Blake  lecture:  ''Eternity  .  .  .  appeared  to  the  Swedish 
mystic  [Swedenborg]  in  the  likeness  of  a  heavenly  man, 
animated  in  all  his  limbs  by  a  fluid  angelic  life  that  forever 
leaves  and  re-enters,  systole  and  diastole  of  love  and  wis- 
dom/' 2 

It  is,  therefore,  the  awareness  of  a  shared  literary  tradition, 
a  tradition  of  esoteric  symbolism,  that  informs  Joyce's  in- 
terest in  Blake's  poetry.  This  awareness  allowed  Joyce  to  look 
at  the  world  through  Blake's  eyes  when  it  suited  his  pur- 
poses to  do  so,  and  to  attempt  a  Blakean  style  for  such 
occasions.  It  also  enabled  him  to  empathize  with  Blake's 
personal  experiences,  perhaps  to  the  point  of  patterning  an 
episode  in  Ulysses  upon  one  of  them.  I  refer  to  Stephen's 
encounter  with  Private  Carr.  Before  we  consider  this,  how- 
ever, it  will  be  useful  to  review  those  passages  in  Ulysses 
which  undoubtedly  have  to  do  with  Blake.^ 

Blake  first  crops  up  in  Stephen's  mind  during  the  history 
lesson  of  the  second  chapter:  'Tabled  by  the  daughters  of 
memory.  And  yet  it  was  in  some  way  if  not  as  memory  fabled 
it.  A  phrase,  then,  of  impatience,  thud  of  Blake's  wings  of 
excess.  I  hear  the  ruin  of  all  space,  shattered  glass  and  top- 
pling masonry,  and  time  one  livid  final  flame.  What's  left 
us  then?"  *  The  "daughters  of  memory"  are  the  classical 
Muses,  whose  province  Blake  considered  to  be  the  bound 
circle  of  history:  "Fable  or  Allegory  is  Form'd  by  the  daugh- 
ters of  Memory.  Imagination  is  surrounded  by  the  daughters 
of  Inspiration,  who  in  the  aggregate  are  call'd  Jerusalem."  ^ 
Like  Vico  and  Joyce,  Blake  saw  history  as  cyclical;  but  his 
great  apocalyptic  poems  culminate  in  the  destruction  of  his- 
tory and  liberation  from  space  and  time.  Joyce's  version  of 
this  theme  —  "time  one  livid  final  flame"  —  will  reappear 
near  the  end  of  the  Circe  chapter,  where  a  number  of 
Blakean  echoes  reverberate.  As  far  as  I  know,  "Blake's  wings 
of  excess"  is  not  a  direct  quotation,  but  it  may  be  a  tele- 
scoping of  the  similar  meanings  of  two  of  Blake's  "Proverbs 
of  Hell": 


Blake  in  Nighttown  177 

The  road  of  excess  leads  to  the  palace  oi  wisdom. 

No  bird  soars  too  high,  ii  he  soars  with  his  own  wings.^ 

Such  a  portmanteau  would  be  in  keeping  with  Stephen's  — 
and  Joyce's  —  proprietary  view  of  his  Blakean  material,  which 
will  be  seen  again  in  the  Library  scene. 

Another  link  between  the  Nestor  and  Circe  chapters  is 
provided  by  a  couplet  from  Blake's  ''Auguries  of  Innocence": 

The  harlot's  cry  horn  street  to  street 
Shall  weave  old  England's  winding  sheet  J 

This  is  called  up  in  Stephen's  mind  by  Mr.  Deasy's  "Old 
England  is  dying";  he  will  think  of  it  again,  but  this  time 
with  reference  to  Ireland,  in  nighttown. 

The  next  Blake  reference,  in  the  Proteus  chapter,  is  con- 
cerned with  space  and  time.  Stephen,  thinking  of  these  in 
their  relation  to  the  senses  ("ineluctable  modality  of  the 
visible,"  "ineluctable  modality  of  the  audible" )  tests  his  sense 
of  touch  by  tapping  with  his  ashplant:  "Sounds  soHd:  made 
by  the  mallet  of  Los  Demiurgos.  Am  I  walking  into  eternity 
along  Sandymount  strand?"  (p.  ^8) 

Los  is  one  of  Blake's  four  Zoas,  or  primal  faculties.  He 
is  the  embodiment  of  Imagination,  "Prophet  of  Eternity." 
Blake  frequently  depicts  him  as  a  worker  in  metal,  wielding 
a  powerful  hammer.  In  Blake's  Milton^  Los  is  an  agent  of 
regeneration  through  the  poetic  or  imaginative  faculty,  fig- 
uratively rendered  when  Milton  enters  Blake  through  the  left 
foot.  Stephen  seems  to  have  in  mind  Blake's  description  of 
the  epiphanal  moment  which  follows  this  psychic  event: 

And  all  this  Vegetable  World  appear'd  on  my  left  Foot 

As  a  bright  sandal  form'd  immortal  oi  precious  stones  &  gold. 

J  stoop  d  down  &•  bound  it  on  to  walk  forward  thro'  Eternity. 

[P-  S03 

Stephen's  thought,  shortly  before  the  passage  quoted,  of 
touch  being  the  elemental  sense  is  in  accord  with  Blake's 


lyS  PALEY 

idea  of  Tharmas,  zoa  of  touch,  as  'Tarent  pow'r."  Also, 
several  of  the  preoccupations  which  Joyce  shares  with  Blake 
are  touched  upon  in  references  to  Boehme  (''Signatures  of 
all  things  I  am  here  to  read/'  p.  38),  ''Edenville"  (p.  39), 
and  the  kabahstic  Adam  Kadmon  (p.  39). 

In  the  National  Library  scene  there  are,  as  we  might  ex- 
pect, several  Blake  references.  John  Eglinton  begins  them 
by  using  Blake's  initials:  ''Seven  is  dear  to  the  mystic  mind. 
The  shining  seven  W.B.  calls  them"  (p.  182).  I  know  of  no 
"shining  seven"  in  Blake's  works,  although  there  is  a  "Starry 
Seven"  in  Milton.  (These  are  the  seven  angels  in  whom 
Satan  says  he  appears.)  More  important  is  another  of 
Stephen's  reflections  upon  space  and  time.  "Through  spaces 
smaller  than  red  globules  of  man's  blood  they  creepycrawl 
after  Blake's  buttocks  into  eternity  of  which  this  vegetable 
world  is  but  a  shadow.  Hold  to  the  now,  the  here,  through 
which  all  future  plunges  to  the  past."  (p.  18/^)  This  is  a 
somewhat  revised  version  of  a  passage  in  Milton  which  denies 
the  reality  of  clock  time  and  measured  space:  Only  the  in- 
tense moment  of  subjective  experience  is  real;  it  is  a  link 
to  eternity,  not  subject  to  chronometer  or  caliper. 

For  every  Space  larger  than  a  red  Globule  oi  Man's  hlood 
Is  visionary^  and  is  created  hy  the  Hammer  oi  Los: 
And  every  Space  smaller  than  a  Globule  oi  Mans  hlood  opens 
Into  Eternity  oi  which  this  vegetable  Earth  is  but  a  shadow. 

[pp.  si6-iy 

Later  in  the  chapter,  Mr.  Best,  the  "blond  ephebe,"  makes 
Stephen  think  of  Blake's  expression  "Lineaments  of  grati- 
fied desire"  (p.  196).  This  is  perhaps  best  known  in  the 
epigram  from  Blake's  Note-Book  called  "The  Question  An- 
swer'd": 

What  is  it  men  in  women  do  require.^ 
The  lineaments  oi  Gratified  Desire. 
What  is  it  women  do  in  men  require.^ 
The  lineaments  oi  Gratified  Desire. 

[p.  180 


Blake  in  Nighttown  179 

Stephen  refers  to  another  Note-Book  poem  in  his  casuistry 
about  avarice  and  incest:  'Whether  these  be  sins  or  virtues 
old  Nobodaddy  will  tell  us  at  doomsday  leet"  (p.  203).  A 
leet,  says  the  Oxford  Dictionary,  was  a  manorial  court;  the 
Nobodaddy  who  will  preside  there  is  Blake's  comic  version 
of  the  man-created  god  of  hellfire  and  vengeance.  He  appears 
in  "To  Nobodaddy"  and  in  the  untitled  poem  about  Lafa- 
yette, beginning  ''Let  the  Brothels  of  Paris  be  opened  .  .  ." 
Joyce  brings  him  back  in  the  Proteus  episode  as  a  producer 
of  thunder:  "A  black  crack  of  noise  in  the  street  here,  alack, 
bowled  back.  .  .  .  But  the  braggart  boaster  cried  that  an 
old  Nobodaddy  was  in  his  cups"  (p.  388).  Perhaps  Joyce 
had  in  mind  the  hues  from  "Let  the  Brothels  of  Paris  .  .  ." 

Then  old  Nobodaddy  aloft 
Faited  &  hdcKd  &  cough'd 

[p.  1S5 

This  also  leads  back  to  the  shout-in-the-street  God  of  chap- 
ter 11,^  a  type  of  Nobodaddy. 

Earlier  in  Proteus^  Stephen  delivers  a  critical  interpreta- 
tion of  several  of  Blake's  lyrics.  He  does  this  as  part  of  the 
mock  sermon  which  follows  his  mock  Eucharist:  "Know  all 
men,  he  said,  time's  ruins  build  eternity's  mansions.  What 
means  this?  Desire's  wind  blasts  the  thorntree,  but  after  it 
becomes  from  a  bramblebush  to  be  a  rose  upon  the  rood  of 
time."  (p.  385)  Having  paraphrased  a  statement  of  Blake's 
("The  Ruins  of  Time  builds  mansions  in  Eternity,"  letter 
to  William  Hayley,  p.  797),  Stephen  uses  it  as  a  gloss  upon 
three  or  four  associated  poems.  One  of  these  is  the  Note- 
Book  lyric  which  begins: 

I  fear'd  the  fury  oi  my  wind 
Would  blight  all  blossoms  fair  &■  true; 
And  my  sun  it  shind  &  shind 
And  my  wind  it  never  blew. 

[p.  166 


l8o  PALEY 

In  this  poem  the  speaker  succeeds  in  restraining  desire's 
wind,  but  the  tree  of  his  love  is  barren  as  a  result.  Another 
situation,  equally  bad,  is  that  of  ''The  Sick  Rose"  of  Songs 
of  Experience,  where  the  flower  is  attacked  and  destroyed 
by  repressed  passion  which  has  become  lust: 

The  invisible  worm 
That  Eies  in  the  night. 
In  the  howUng  stoim, 

Has  found  out  thy  bed 
Oi  ciimson  joy: 
And  his  dark  secret  love 
Does  thy  hie  destroy. 

[p.  213 

The  thorntree  Stephen  speaks  of  probably  is  that  in  an- 
other of  the  Songs  of  Experience,  ''My  Pretty  Rose  Tree." 
Here  the  lover's  desire  is  thwarted  by  the  beloved: 

Then  J  went  to  my  Pretty  Rose-tree, 
To  tend  her  by  day  and  by  night; 
But  my  Rose  turned  away  with  jealousy, 
And  her  thorns  were  my  only  delight. 

[p.  215 

The  bramblebush  of  sexual  frustration  becomes  "a  rose  upon 
the  rood  of  time":  In  the  retort  of  Yeats,  the  explicitly 
sexual  symbohsm  of  Blake's  flower  poems  ^  is  sublimed  into 
The  Rose.  Erotic  passion  is  etherealized,  flesh  made  spirit. 
Stephen  goes  on  ironically  to  say:  "Mark  me  now.  In 
woman's  womb  word  is  made  flesh  but  in  the  spirit  of  the 
maker  all  flesh  that  passes  becomes  the  word  that  shall  not 
pass  away."  Blake  treats  with  a  similar  theme,  likewise 
ironically,  in  another  of  the  Songs:  "Ah!  Sunflower."  The 
longings  of  the  Youth  and  the  Virgin  are  transferred  from 
earth  to  an  imagined  hereafter:  ^^ 

.  .  .  the  Youth  pined  away  with  desire 
And  the  pale  Virgin  shrouded  in  snow 


Blake  in  Nighttown  181 

Arise  from  their  graves  and  aspire 
Where  my  Sun-flower  wishes  to  go. 

[p.  21s 

The  concision  of  Stephen's  thought  here,  inweaving  the 
meanings  of  several  of  Blake's  poems  into  a  single  statement, 
shows  us  to  what  extent  he  —  and  Joyce  —  have  assimilated 
Blake's  poetry  and  symbols  into  their  own  views  of  reality. 
It  is  but  a  step  from  speaking  in  Blake's  terms  to  identify- 
ing with  him,  as  we  shall  see  in  considering  the  end  of  the 
Circe  chapter. 


II 


At  the  climax  of  the  Circe  chapter  there  occur  two  very 
important  dramatic  actions:  Stephen  exorcises  his  mother's 
ghost  and  then  is  knocked  down  in  the  street  by  Private 
Carr.  The  first  of  these  events  realizes  one  of  the  central 
themes  of  Ulysses;  the  second,  also  of  thematic  importance, 
in  addition  makes  it  possible  for  Bloom  to  rescue  Stephen 
and  for  them  to  enjoy  their  brief  noncommunion.  In  the 
presentation  of  each  of  these  crises,  Blakean  associations  are 
important. 

At  the  epiphanal  moment  when  Stephen  strikes  at  Bella 
Cohen's  lamp  with  his  ashplant,  there  is  an  echo  of  the 
"daughters  of  memory"  passage  of  the  Nestor  chapter. 
'Time's  livid  final  flame  leaps  and,  in  the  following  dark- 
ness, ruin  of  all  space,  shattered  glass  and  toppling  masonry" 
(p.  ^68).  The  claims  of  history  are  repudiated  when  Stephen 
rejects  his  mother's  deathly  call  to  repentance.  His  blow  at 
the  lamp  seems  to  bring  about  a  Blakean  apocalypse  in 
which  history  is  destroyed  together  with  time  and  space.  But 
instead  of  being  universal  as  in  Blake,  the  effect  here  is 
limited  to  Stephen's  consciousness,  where  it  is  only  mo- 
mentary. Bloom,  having  paid  for  the  broken  chimney,  rushes 


152  PALEY 

into  the  street  to  find  Stephen  reaching  a  misunderstanding 
with  Private  Carr. 

Joyce's  motive  in  creating  a  Private  Can  was  personal.^^ 
But  the  end  that  Carr  serves  in  Ulysses  is  an  artistic  one  — 
through  Stephen's  encounter  with  him  is  crystalhzed  the 
conflict  between  the  artist  and  the  brute  power  of  the  state, 
of  empire.  Stephen  does  not  wilhngly  enter  this  conflict,  nor 
does  he  do  so  for  nationahstic  reasons  —  he  ignores  the 
dagger  that  Old  Gummy  Granny  proffers  him.  At  last  he  is 
literally  forced  to  accept  its  reality,  after  having  Bloomishly 
attempted  to  live  and  let  live.  Now,  Joyce  cannot  but  have 
been  aware  that  William  Blake  had  had  a  similar  experience 
with  a  soldier,  that  he  had  cast  it  into  the  symbolism  of  his 
Jerusalemy  and  that  it  had  borne  in  his  mind  a  significance 
very  similar  to  that  demanded  by  the  Private  Carr  episode. 
With  the  examples  that  we  have  seen  of  Joyce's  abihty  to 
combine  Blake's  vision  with  his  own,  it  hardly  seems  too 
much  to  suppose  that  Joyce  may  have  transcribed  a  page  of 
Blake's  life  for  Stephen's  nighttown  adventure.^^ 

Blake's  encounter  with  Private  John  Scholfield  occurred 
in  August  1803.  Joyce  could  have  read  the  poet's  own  account 
of  it  in  Edwin  J.  Ellis'  The  Real  Blake,  which  was  probably 
Joyce's  source  of  biographical  information  for  the  Blake  lec- 
ture he  delivered  at  Trieste  in  1912.^^  Blake  says: 

I  am  at  present  in  a  Bustle  to  defend  myself  against  a 
very  unwarrantable  warrant  from  a  Justice  of  Peace  in 
Chichester,  which  was  taken  out  against  me  by  a  Private 
in  Capt°  Leathe's  troop  of  1^^  or  Royal  Dragoons,  for  an 
assault  &  Seditious  words.  The  wretched  Man  has  terribly 
Perjur'd  himself,  as  has  his  Comrade;  for,  as  to  Sedition, 
not  one  Word  relating  to  the  King  or  Government  was 
spoken  by  either  him  or  me.  His  Enmity  arises  from  my 
having  turned  him  out  of  my  Garden. 

Blake  goes  on  to  tell  how  he  turned  Scholfield  out,  pushing 
him  fifty  yards  down  the  road  while  the  soldier  impotently 
struck,  raged,  and  cursed.  Afterwards,  Scholfield,  backed  up 


Blake  in  Nighttown  183 

by  one  Private  Cock,  succeeded  in  having  Blake  indicted 
for  allegedly  uttering  seditious  and  treasonable  expressions; 
but  at  the  trial  in  January  1804  Blake  was  acquitted.  The 
Scholfield  episode,  which  the  poet  believed  to  have  been 
brought  about  by  the  government,  left  a  deep  impression 
upon  him.  '7s  it  not  in  the  power/'  he  complained,  "of  any 
Thief  who  enters  a  Man's  Dwelling,  &  robs  him,  or  misuses 
his  Wife  or  Children,  to  go  &  swear  as  this  Man  has  sworn" 
(Blake's  Memorandum,  p.  439).  He  proceeded  to  work 
Scholfield  into  the  symbolism  of  Jerusalem^  where  the  soldier 
and  his  friend  Cock  are  two  of  the  giant  sons  of  Albion  who 
war  against  the  Eternal  Man. 

All  his  Affections  now  appear  withoutside:  all  his  SonSy 
Hand,  Hyle,  &  Coban,  GuantoJc,  Peachey,  Brereton,  Slayd  & 

Hutton, 
Who  aie  the  Spectres  of  the  Twenty-four,  each  Double- 

{orm'd. 
Revolve  upon  his  mountains  groaning  in  pain  beneath 
The  dark  incessant  sky,  seeking  rest  and  Ending  none  .  .  . 

[p.  641 

These  spectral  sons  of  Albion  are  products  of  that  internal 
division  of  man  which  is  the  subject  of  Blake's  epics.  In 
their  proper  state,  as  the  above  passage  tells  us,  they  are 
"affections";  but  in  the  fallen  world  they  become  embodi- 
ments of  hatred  and  destruction.  "Scofield  is  bound  in  iron 
armour  .  .  ."  (p.  628).  "Hand  &  Hyle  &  Koban,  Skofield, 
Kox  &  Kotope  labour  mightily/  In  the  wars  of  Babel  & 
Shinar  .  .  ."  (p.  628).  Scholfield  is  singled  out  as  "Adam 
who  was  New-/  Created  in  Edom,"  Adam  being  Blake's 
figure  for  man  enmeshed  in  the  toils  of  the  senses,  in  the 
illusion  that  the  material  world  is  real.  As  for  Albion's  other 
sons,  Guantok  or  Quantock  was  the  Justice  of  the  Peace  who 
signed  a  recognizance  to  insure  the  appearance  of  the  two 
soldiers;  ^^  Peachey  and  Brereton  two  other  Justices;  Bowen 
the  prosecutor;  Hutton,  George  Hulton,  the  heutenant  who 


184  PALEY 

was  made  responsible  for  the  soldiers'  appearance  at  the 
trial.  Hyle  is  probably  Hayley,  Blake's  corporeal  friend  and 
spiritual  enemy,  who  testified  on  his  behalf;  Hand  represents 
the  brothers  Hunt  in  their  capacity  as  editors  of  the  Ex- 
aminer}^  Coban,  Kotope,  and  Lloyd  remain  unidentified. 
If  we  compare  the  two  episodes,  some  striking  correspond- 
ences suggest  themselves.  In  each  one,  a  poet  is  attacked  by 
a  redcoat,  who  is  backed  up  by  another  redcoat.  A  false 
accusation  of  traducing  the  king  is  made  in  each  —  Schol- 
field  accused  Blake  of  saying  ''Damn  the  King,"  while  Carr 
threatens  Stephen:  'I'll  wring  the  neck  of  any  bugger  says 
a  word  against  my  fucking  king."  ^^  Actually,  Carr  has  mis- 
understood a  Blakean  gesture  of  Stephen's:  '\He  taps  his 
brow.)  But  in  here  it  is  I  must  kill  the  priest  and  the  king."  ^^ 
Stephen  blames  history  for  his  predicament,  again  echoing 
the  second  chapter:  'Tou  are  my  guests.  The  uninvited.  By 
virtue  of  the  fifth  of  George  and  the  seventh  of  Edward. 
History  to  blame.  Fabled  by  mothers  of  memory."  *'Go  to  it, 
Harry,"  urges  Private  Compton.  *'Do  him  one  in  the  eye"; 
Scholfield,  wrote  Blake,  ''threaten'd  to  Knock  out  my  Eyes." 
And  while  Carr  rages  for  the  honor  of  king  and  Caffrey, 
Stephen  revises  Blake's  couplet: 

The  harlot's  cry  horn  street  to  street 
Shall  weave  old  Ireland's  winding  sheet. 

The  ensuing  combats  end  up  rather  differently,  owing  to  a 
difference  in  the  psychology  of  the  protagonists :  Joyce  wanted 
to  depict  Stephen  as  a  victim,  while  Blake,  though  willing 
to  imagine  himself  persecuted,  would  stand  for  no  nonsense. 
And  just  as  Blake  peopled  Jerusalem  with  the  villains  of  his 
trial,  so  Joyce  paid  back  his  enemies  in  Ulysses.  Sir  Horace 
Rumbold,  British  Minister  to  Switzerland,  is  a  hangman  ^^ 
—  "Hanging  Harry,  your  Majesty,  the  Mersey  terror"  (p. 
^^6^ ) .  Consul-General  Bennett  is  the  soldiers'  sergeant-major 
(pp.  443-44).  "Private"  Compton  is  identified  by  Ellmann 


Blake  in  Nighttown  185 

as  someone  who  Joyce  believed  had  ''bungled  the  affairs  of 
the  English  players/'  "J^^  Gam"  and  "Toad  Smith"  (two 
rogues  hanged  by  Rumbold  in  his  career)  as  consular  em- 
ployees who  refused  to  testify  for  Joyce.^^ 

These  parallels  suggest  that  Joyce,  after  the  run-in  with 
Carr  in  the  consular  ofEce,  was  reminded  of  Scholfield's 
provocation  of  Blake,  an  impression  which  could  have  been 
reinforced  by  the  lawsuits  and  trial  hearings  which  followed. 
Like  Blake,  Joyce  tended  to  see  the  hand  of  the  government 
in  his  difficulties  and  to  regard  the  state  as  inimical  to  the 
artist's  freedom. ^^  Joyce  understood  very  well  how  a  personal 
experience  could  assume  universal  import,  as  the  Scholfield 
episode  does  in  Jerusalem.  "The  life  of  a  great  poet  is  in- 
tense — "  he  had  written,  "—  the  hfe  of  a  Blake  or  a  Dante 
—  taking  into  its  centre  the  life  that  surrounds  it  and  throw- 
ing it  abroad  again  amid  planetary  music."  ^^  This  is  exactly 
what  Joyce  did,  with  the  example  of  Blake  before  him,  at  the 
climax  of  his  Circe  chapter. 


NOTES 

1.  See  Northrop  Frye,  "Blake  and  Joyce,"  James  Joyce  Re- 
view, VI  (February  1957),  39-47;  William  York  Tindall,  "Joyce 
and  the  Hermetic  Tradition,"  Journal  of  the  History  of  Ideas, 
XV  (January  1954),  23-29. 

2.  "William  Blake,"  The  Critical  Writings  of  James  Joyce, 
Ellsworth  Mason  and  Richard  Ellmann,  eds.  (New  York,  1959), 
pp.  221-22. 

3.  These  were  first  listed  by  S.  Foster  Damon  in  "The  Odys- 
sey in  Dublin,"  now  to  be  found  in  Seon  Givens  (ed.),  Joyce: 
Two  Decades  of  Criticism  (New  York,  1948),  p.  203n.  In 
addition,  there  are  some  interesting  conjectures  in  Stuart  Gil- 
bert's James  Joyces  Ulysses  (New  York,  1930),  pp.  i3in., 
i32n.,  and  244.  In  the  discussion  below,  however,  I  will  take 
up  only  those  identifications  which  seem  certain  to  me. 

4.  Page  25.  The  Modern  Library  edition  will  be  cited  through- 
out. 


l86  PALEY 

5.  From  "A  Vision  of  the  Last  Judgment,"  The  Complete 
Writings  of  William  Blake,  Geoffrey  Keynes,  ed.  (London, 
1957),  page  604.  This  is  the  edition  I  shall  refer  to  throughout. 
Mason  and  Ellmann  note  (p.  8in.)  that  this  passage  of  Blake 
is  used  both  here  and  in  the  "J^i^i^s  Clarence  Mangan"  essay. 
Blake's  own  source  was  Milton's  Reason  of  Church  Govern- 
ment: ''.  .  .  a  work  not  to  be  raised  from  the  heat  of  youth  or 
the  vapours  of  wine  .  .  .  nor  to  be  obtain'd  by  the  invocation 
of  Dame  Memory  and  her  Siren  daughters,  but  by  devout  prayer 
to  that  eternall  Spirit  who  .  .  .  sends  out  his  Seraphim  with 
the  hallow'd  fire  of  his  Altar  to  touch  and  purify  the  lips  of 
whom  he  pleases."  Complete  Works  of  John  Milton,  Don  M. 
Wolfe,  ed.  (New  Haven,  1953),  i,  820-21. 

6.  Pages  150,  151.  7.  Ulysses,  p.  34;  Blake,  p.  433. 

8.  As  William  York  Tindall  points  out  in  A  Reader's  Guide 
to  James  Joyce  (New  York,  1959),  p.  202. 

9.  Anyone  who  doubts  this  should  consult  Blake's  phallic 
illustration  for  "The  Sick  Rose." 

10.  Cf.  Enitharmon's  orders  for  enslaving  the  human  race 
in  Europe  (p.  240),  published  the  same  year  as  Songs  of  Ex- 
perience (1794) : 

Go!  tell  the  Human  race  that  Woman's  love  is  Sin; 

That  an  Eternal  life  awaits  the  worms  of  sixty  winters 

In  an  allegorical  abode  where  existence  hath  never  come  .  .  . 

11.  For  Henry  Carr,  see  Richard  Ellmann,  James  Joyce  (New 
York,  1959),  pp.  439-41.  Carr  was  a  man-about-consulate  with 
whom  Joyce  quarreled  in  Zurich  in  1918.  He  first  appears  as 
"Private  Carr"  in  some  verses  that  Joyce  wrote  after  the  con- 
clusion of  the  first  lawsuit  between  them.  Ellmann  says  that 
Carr  pretended  to  have  been  an  army  officer  when  he  really  had 
been  a  common  soldier;  hence,  "Private"  Carr. 

12.  After  writing  this,  I  learned  that  Professor  Ellmann  had 
also  suggested  a  connection  between  Private  Carr  and  Blake's 
Private  Scholfield;  see  "The  Backgrounds  of  Ulysses/'  Kenyon 
Review,  xvi  (summer  1954),  373. 

13.  As  Mason  and  Ellmann  point  out  (p.  21 7n.),  Joyce 
repeats  some  of  Ellis'  fancies. 

14.  Identified,  with  several  of  those  following,  by  Sir  Geoffrey 


Blake  in  Nighttown  187 

Keynes,  "Blake's  Trial  at  Chichester,"  Notes  and  Queries,  iv 
(November  1957),  484-85. 

15.  The  Hunts  were  not  connected  with  the  trial.  However, 
as  David  V.  Erdman  has  shown,  Blake  included  them  among 
his  enemies  because  of  a  vicious  attack  made  by  the  Examiner 
upon  Blake's  exhibition  of  paintings  in  1809.  The  Hunts'  edi- 
torial signature  was  a  hand.  See  William  Blake:  Prophet  Against 
Empire  (Princeton,  N.J.,  1954),  pp.  419-25. 

16.  Henry  Carr  had  threatened  Joyce:  "Next  time  I  catch 
you  outside  I'll  wring  your  neck"  (Ellmann,  p.  440). 

17.  Blake's  political  philosophy  in  a  nutshell,  as  well  as  an 
echo  of  such  lines  as:  ".  .  .  gone  to  praise  God  &  his  Priest  & 
King/  Who  make  up  a  heaven  of  our  misery."  —  "The  Chimney 
Sweeper,"  p.  212.  Also  see  Blake's  letter  to  George  Cumberland, 
12  April  1827,  where  he  speaks  of  "The  Mind,  in  which  every 
one  is  King  &  Priest  in  his  own  House"  (p.  879). 

18.  See  Ellmann,  p.  472.  19.  Idem. 

20.  Cf.  Joyce's  remarks  to  Georges  Borach:  "As  an  artist  I 
am  against  every  state.  .  .  .  The  state  is  concentric,  man  is 
eccentric.  Thence  arises  an  eternal  struggle"  (Ellmann,  p.  460). 

21.  Critical  Writings,  p.  82. 


10 


Joyce  and  Blake:  Notes  Toward  Defining  a 
Literary  Relationship 


ROBERT  F.  GLECKNER 


THE  study  of  the  Blake- Joyce  relationship  was  begun  in 
1912  when  Joyce  himself  delivered  a  lecture  on  ''that  un- 
disciplined and  visionary  heresiarch"  at  the  University 
Popolare  Triestina.^  Since  that  time  a  number  of  critics  and 
commentators  have  called  attention  to  the  general  similar- 
ities between  Blake's  archetypal  vision  and  Joyce's,  and  some 
have  documented  specific  usages  of  Blakean  material  in  A 
Portrait  of  the  Artist,  Ulysses,  and  Finnegans  Wake.  It  is 
the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  show  that  this  vein  has  scarcely 
been  tapped,  that  the  full  extent  of  Joyce's  use  of  Blake  is 
still  to  be  explored,  and  that  the  final  story  of  this  most 
complex  relationship  is  yet  to  be  told.  This  last  I  cannot 
essay  in  a  paper  of  this  length,  but  I  hope  to  provide  here 
usable  notes  toward  that  final  story.  I  have  neither  exhausted 
the  vast  store  of  Blakean  material  in  Finnegans  Wake  (the 
most  fruitful  text  for  understanding  the  relationship)  nor 
have  I  undertaken  anything  like  a  complete  exegesis  of 
individual  passages,  references,  allusions.  This  I  leave, 
properly  I  think,  to  the  Joyceans. 
To   understand    something   of   the   rationale   of  Joyce's 

ROBERT  F.  GLECKNER  is  PwfessoT  of  English  at  the  University  of 
Calif ornid  {Riverside)  and  has  been  investigating  the  relationship 
between  Joyce  and  Blake. 


Joyce  and  Blake  189 

many  and  varied  allusions  to  Blake  in  the  Wake  we  need 
to  be  made  aware  once  again  of  the  many  and  varied  reasons 
for  Joyce's  interest  in  Blake  at  all.  The  most  prominent  of 
these  is  Blake's  "mythopoeic  vision  embracing  in  an  arche- 
typal pattern  of  fall,  struggle,  and  redemption  every  mode 
of  human  activity;  [the]  bulk  and  complexity  [of  the  works] 
derive  from  their  method  of  counterpointing  within  this  pat- 
tern particular  chains  of  action  at  a  dozen  different  levels: 
physiological,  psychological,  esthetic,  theological,  erotic  — 
even  commercial."  ^  The  description  is  Hugh  Kenner's,  writ- 
ing about  Ulysses  and  Finnegans  Wake,  and  I  use  it  here  to 
dramatize  the  close  affinity  between  Joyce's  vision  in  his  two 
great  epics  and  Blake's  in  The  Four  Xoas,  Milton,  and 
Jerusalem.  Northrop  Frye  has  recently  demonstrated  this 
most  convincingly,  adding  a  valuable  word  of  caution:  that 
Joyce  did  not  necessarily  borrow  the  mythography  from 
Blake,  but  rather  wrote  within  the  same  mythographic  tra- 
dition.^ Further,  whatever  specific  material  Joyce  did  con- 
sciously take  from  Blake  was  absorbed,  modified,  reshaped, 
and  fused  into  the  fabric  of  his  own  vision. 

In  addition  to  this  fundamental  kinship,  however,  there 
are  other  ties  between  the  two  men,  which  Joyce  discovered 
partly  on  his  own,  partly  through  W.  B.  Yeats  and  E.  J. 
Ellis.*  First  of  all  Joyce  seems  to  have  accepted  the  Yeats- 
Ellis  notion  that  Blake  was  an  Irishman  whose  real  name 
was  O'Neil;  and  he  comments  pointedly  in  his  lecture  on 
the  hearsay  nonsense  about  Blake's  'madness,"  the  world's 
interpretation  of  genius.^  These  two  points  alone  were 
enough  for  Joyce  to  associate  Blake  with  Swift  (and  him- 
self) in  Finnegans  Wake.^  Joyce's  veneration  for  Ibsen  may 
also  have  brought  to  his  mind  thoughts  of  Blake.  For  ex- 
ample, a  crucial  speech  of  Irene  in  When  We  Dead  Awaken 
is  remarkably  similar  to  the  closing  scene  of  Blake's  Book 
of  Thely  in  which  Tliel  enters  her  own  grave-plot.  Here  is 
Irene:  '1  was  dead  for  many  years.  Then  they  lowered  me 
into  a  grave-vault,  with  iron  bars  before  the  loop-hole.  And 


190  GLECKNER 

with  padded  walls  —  so  that  no  one  on  the  earth  could  hear 
the  grave-shrieks."  More  important,  however,  than  this  echo, 
which  Joyce  surely  heard  (vide  his  Blake  lecture),  is  the 
lonely  figure  of  Dr.  Stockmann  at  the  end  of  An  Enemy  of 
the  People:  ''The  strongest  man  in  the  world  is  he  who 
stands  most  alone"  —  Ibsen  himself,  Blake  the  ''heresiarch," 
and  of  course  Joyce.  And  Joyce,  as  exile,  had  a  special 
sympathy  for  Blake's  exile  within  the  country  of  his  own 
mind,  beyond  the  intimidating  time  and  space  of  London, 
the  ''chartered  Thames,"  and  the  world  at  large.  There  Joyce 
saw  Blake  "remaking  himself"  with  his  visions  in  a  private 
circle  of  destiny,  of  fall,  struggle,  and  redemption.  As  North- 
rop Frye  has  said,  Blake  looked  forward  to  a  world  ''no 
longer  continuously  perceived  but  continually  created," ''' 
the  world  of  Joyce,  of  Stephen,  of  Shem,  the  world  of  the 
artist,  the  world  of  Finnegans  Wake.  Joyce's  comment  on 
this  in  his  lecture  is  the  most  stirring  and  passionate  of  all 
his  judgments  of  Blake: 

Armed  with  this  two-edged  sword,  the  art  of  Michelangelo 
and  the  revelations  of  Swedenborg,  Blake  killed  the  dragon 
of  experience  and  natural  wisdom,  and,  by  minimizing 
space  and  time  and  denying  the  existence  of  memory  and 
the  senses,  he  tried  to  paint  his  works  on  the  void  of  the 
divine  bosom.  To  him,  each  moment  shorter  than  a  pulse- 
beat  was  equivalent  in  its  duration  to  six  thousand  years, 
because  in  such  an  infinitely  short  instant  the  work  of 
the  poet  is  conceived  and  born.  To  him,  all  space  larger 
than  a  red  globule  of  human  blood  was  visionary,  created 
by  the  hammer  of  Los,  while  in  a  space  smaller  than  a 
globule  of  blood  we  approach  eternity.  .  .  .  Flying  from 
the  infinitely  small  to  the  infinitely  large,  from  a  drop  of 
blood  to  the  universe  of  stars,  his  soul  is  consumed  by  the 
rapidity  of  flight,  and  finds  itself  renewed  and  winged  and 
immortal  on  the  edge  of  the  dark  ocean  of  God. 

But  while  Joyce  thrilled  to  the  visions  of  Los,  Urizen, 
Vala,  Tiriel,  Enitharmon,  and  the  other  eternals  coming 
"from  their  ideal  world  to  a  poor  London  room,"  he  was 


Joyce  and  Blake  191 

also  intensely  aware  of  another  aspect  of  Blake's  work,  the 
Songs  of  Innocence  and  Songs  of  ExperiencCy  with  which 
Joyce  seems  often  in  Finnegan  to  compare  his  own  Chamber 
Music.  And  there  is  reference  in  the  Wake  to  Blake's  even 
more  youthful  jeu  d'esprit,  An  Island  in  the  Moon.  Finally, 
largely  from  his  reading  of  Ellis's  The  Real  Blake,  Joyce  was 
attracted  to  some  obvious  similarities  between  his  own  life 
and  career  and  Blake's.  Brother  Robert  I  have  mentioned 
(see  note  6),  and  Blake's  ''madness"  and  the  exile  theme; 
but  surely  Joyce,  thinking  of  Nora,  was  even  more  im- 
pressed with  the  story  of  Blake's  wife,  Catherine  Boucher, 
the  illiterate  daughter  of  a  nursery  gardener.  Blake  taught 
''her  to  read  and  write,"  Joyce  reminds  us  in  his  lecture,  but 
even  more  pertinent  to  his  own  self-confessed  "shaping"  of 
Nora,  Blake  "wanted  the  soul  of  his  beloved  to  be  entirely 
a  slow  and  painful  creation  of  his  own." 

In  view  of  all  this  the  question  of  "influence"  is  obviously 
a  complex  one.  SufEce  it  to  say  here  that  Joyce  was  inter- 
ested in,  even  fascinated  by,  what  one  might  call  the  whole 
Blake;  and  L.  A.  G.  Strong,  then,  is  more  nearly  correct  than 
most  critics  are  at  the  moment  ready  to  admit  when  he 
asserts  in  The  Sacred  River  that  Blake  was  one  of  the  three 
writers  who  most  deeply  influenced  Joyce. 


II 


I  have  counted  about  sixty  references  to  Blake  by  name 
in  Finnegans  Wake,  most  of  them  disguised  according  to 
a  fairly  simple,  and  most  appropriate,  plan.  Just  as  Joyce 
has  his  many  sets  of  contraries  in  the  Wake,  so  too  he  was 
aware  of  Blake's  insistence  (in  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell)  that  "without  contraries  is  no  progression."  The  fa- 
mous Work  in  Progress  title,  then,  is  no  mere  description 
of  a  partly  finished  manuscript,  but  an  accurate  description 


192  GLECKNER 

of  a  work  which  in  itself  is  the  epitome  of  constant  move- 
ment, rebirth,  progress.  The  clue  to  Joyce's  usage  of  Blake's 
name  rests  in  the  etymology  of  the  name  itself.  According 
to  the  OED,  blake  is  the  direct  phonetic  descendent  of  oe. 
blac,  pale,  so  that  the  word  has  immediately  twin  associa- 
tions, black  and  white.  This  is  supported  by  the  etymological 
association  of  these  words  with  me.  bleche,  the  origin  of 
bleach.  Further,  black  in  me.  is  blak  (German  blak)^  which 
is  in  turn  derived  from  a  word  meaning  ink.  Thus  Chaucer 
uses  the  word  blake  to  mean  black  writing  or  ink  (Troz7us, 
II,  1320).  There  is  a  connection  here  too  between  me.  and 
German  blak  and  Dutch  blaken,  to  burn  or  scorch  (cf. 
Chaucer's  Monk's  Tale,  3321);  and  Skeat  suggests  that  this 
is  related  in  turn  to  bleak.  Bleak  of  course  formerly  meant 
pale,  pallid,  wan,  to  ally  it  on  the  one  hand  with  white,  but 
at  the  same  time  with  a  very  slight  brogue  bleak  becomes 
blake  and  hence  black.  Indeed  blake  is  used  to  mean  bare, 
naked,  bleak  in  A  Mirror  for  Magistrates.  Joyce's  use  of 
blake,  black,  blac,  bleak  (and  hence  white  and  its  various 
permutations)  as  virtually  interchangeable  is  further  sup- 
ported by  his  references  to  Blackrock,  where  the  Joyces  lived 
in  1892-93:  "Blake-Roche"  (294:22),  "Bleakrooky"  (40:30) .« 

The  problem  of  course  is  to  disentangle  black  from  white, 
Blake  from  black,  place  from  person,  and  so  on.  This  I  have 
done  only  generally,  and  I  have  not  pursued  systematically 
my  gnawing  hunch  that  most  (if  not  all)  of  Joyce's  blacks 
and  whites  are  also  Blakes.  In  any  case  the  following  are  a 
goodly  number  to  begin  with. 

62:26-2j  Here  at  the  beginning  of  the  story  of  hce's  en- 
counter in  the  park  and  his  ultimate  arrest,  Joyce  suggests 
that  we  are  reading  the  Book  of  Mankind,  following  our 
own  journey  through  the  Underworld  (''Amenti").  These 
regions  are  described  in  ''Chapters  of  the  Coming  Forth  by 
Day  in  the  Underworld"  in  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead.^ 
By  changing  the  ''whiteness"  of  day  to  the  "blackness"  of 
Blake  (in  the  madness,  "amentia,"  of  his  genius)   in  the 


Joyce  and  Blake  193 

last  phrase,  Joyce  points  directly  to  the  Sixth  Night  of  The 
Four  Zoas  (hnes  1^1-iy^)  in  which  Urizen  explores  his  own 
fallen,  cursed  world  and  becomes  subject  to  its  terrors  or, 
as  Joyce  puts  it  just  prior  to  the  passage  quoted,  "subjected 
to  the  horrors  of  the  premier  terror  of  Errorland."  In  the 
Blake  passage  the  guilt  of  HCE-Urizen  is  clear,  as  is  the 
impetus  to  write,  to  create  out  of  this  chaos  a  world: 
".  .  .  nor  can  the  man  who  goes  /  The  journey  obstinate 
refuse  to  write  time  after  time." 

63:20-^0  Here  hce  claims  that  he's  had  too  much  to 
drink,  in  several  pubs  with  strikingly  Blakean  names  (''House 
of  Blazes,  the  Parrot  in  Hell  .  .  .  the  Sun,  the  Holy 
Lamb"),  so  that  now  he  cannot  distinguish  "a  white  thread 
from  a  black."  Blake  here  appears  as  the  white,  truth,  and 
the  thread  is  obviously  the  confused  and  confusing  "threat" 
voiced  by  the  stranger  in  the  park.  But  it  is  also  Blake's 
"thread"  in: 

I  give  you  the  end  of  a  golden  string: 
Only  wind  it  into  a  ball, 
It  will  lead  you  in  at  Heaven's  Gate 
Built  in  Jerusalem's  wall. 

Fallen,  hce  must  now  rely  on  "the  engine  of  the  laws" 
(i.e.  Urizen's  iron  book  of  laws),^^  and  it,  of  course,  will 
not  lead  him  to  Jerusalem  at  all  but  to  the  gates  of  the  Hell 
of  this  world. 

114:io-ii  In  the  account  of  alp's  untitled  "mamafesta" 
Blake-white  again  appears,  in  "lampblack  and  blackthorn." 
The  reference  is  specifically  to  Blake's  printing  of  his  works, 
but  the  lamp  also  suggests  light,  whiteness,  as  opposed  to 
the  blackness  of  the  lamp's  soot.  In  German  blak  is  the 
fumes  from  a  charred  lampwick,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
slang  term  for  nonsense.  Thus  in  the  same  breath  we  have 
the  wisdom  of  the  lamp  and  the  nonsense  of  the  blak,  the 
former  seen  in  alp's  letter  if  one  uses  imaginative  vision, 
the  latter  if  seen  with  the  veiled  eyes  of  the  worldly  senses. 


194  GLECKNER 

This  ambiguity  is  merely  echoed  by  the  word  ''blackthorn/' 
a  tree  similar  to  our  hawthorne  which  produces  pure  white 
flowers.  Much  of  the  rest  of  Joyce's  paragraph  can  also  be 
taken  as  descriptive  of  Blake's  self-engraved  (''homeborn"), 
strange,  ''antechristian"  poetry,  the  'waste"  in  which  there 
is  "wisdom"  {114:ii-2o). 

llliij  This  is  in  the  context  of  the  Professor's  description 
of  alp's  letter  in  the  style  of  Sir  Edward  Sullivan's  account 
of  the  Book  of  Kells.  Campbell  and  Robinson  note  that  it 
is  also  Joyce  describing  Finnegans  Wake.  More  accurately  it 
is  Joyce  describing  the  Wake  in  the  light  of  Blake's  illu- 
minated "blackartful"  prophetic  books.  Sulhvan's  opening 
paragraph,  quoted  in  A  Skeleton  Key,  pp.  lo^-^,  applies, 
indeed,  much  more  directly  to  Blake  than  to  Joyce,  as  does 
the  language  of  Joyce's  Professor  on  pages  11^22  of  the 
Wake. 

177:2^  if  Perhaps  a  reference  to  "Billy"  Blake  and  his 
Shem-like  "blaspheming"  in  The  Four  Zoas  ("congregant 
of  his  four  soups").  Some  support  for  this  lies  further  on 
in  the  passage  with  the  mention  of  the  "Ballade  Imaginaire" 
of  "Maistre  Sheames  de  la  Plume,  some  most  dreadful  stuff 
in  a  murderous  mirrorhand."  Shem  and  Blake  are  often 
merged  by  Joyce,  perhaps  following  up  Yeats'  epithet, 
"Blake  the  penman,"  ^^  so  that  Blake's  (and  Joyce's)  nom 
de  plume  is  Shem  and  vice  versa.  Also  Blake  wrote  occasion- 
ally in  "mirrorhand"  and  more  "murderously"  engraved 
many  of  his  copper  plates  in  reverse  image  so  that  the  print 
read  in  the  correct  order.  The  rest  of  Joyce's  paragraph, 
while  disclaiming  vigorously  that  Shem  has  no  rival  in  this 
style,  ambiguously  suggests  a  "model"  via  the  double 
negatives:  Shem  is  neither  "prexactly  unlike  his  polar  and- 
thisishis  [nor]  the  seem  ...  as  what  he  fancied  or  guessed 
the  sames  as  he  was  himself"  {177 :^2-'^^). 

182:^o-^^  A  combined  reference  to  the  place  of  work  of 
Joyce,  Blake,  and  Shem,  "The  house  O'Shea  or  O'Shame." 
The  "Haunted  Inkbottle"  is  related  to  the  several  other 


Joyce  and  Blake  195 

Blakean  printing-ink-black  contexts,  and  Blake  is  further 
suggested  by  the  address:  ''no  number  Brimstone  Walk,  Asia 
in  Ireland."  In  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell  Blake  as- 
sociates himself  continually  with  devils,  the  purveyors  of 
eternal  wisdom;  for  example,  one  ''Memorable  Fancy"  be- 
gins: "As  I  was  walking  among  the  fires  of  hell,  delighted 
with  the  enjoyments  of  Genius,  which  to  Angels  look  like 
torment  and  insanity.  .  .  ."  Joyce  refers  to  this  passage  at 
least  once  more  as  we  shall  see,  and  follows  up  the  present 
context  with:  "Angles  aftanon  browsing  there  thought  not 
Edam  reeked  more  rare"  {183:y-8)}^  "Brimstone  Walk" 
recalls  another  "Memorable  Fancy,"  in  which  Blake  re- 
counts his  visit  to  "a  Printing  house  in  Hell"  where  he  saw 
"the  method  in  which  knowledge  is  transmitted  from  gen- 
eration to  generation."  "Asia  in  Ireland"  may  refer  to  Blake's 
use  of  "Asia"  in  a  section  of  The  Song  of  Los^  especially  so 
since  Los  is  identified  so  often  with  Blake  and  with  Joyce 
in  Finnegan.  The  passage  continues  with  "his  penname 
SHUT  sepiascraped  on  the  doorplate  and  a  blind  of  black  sail- 
cloth over  its  wan  phwinshogue"  —  the  sepia  a  clear  reference 
to  Blake's  frequent  use  of  this  medium,  and  the  "SHUT" 
reiterating  the  theme  of  isolation,  exile,  separation  from  the 
world  outside  his  cottage.  In  addition,  of  course,  Joyce  is 
referring  to  the  black  patch  he  wore  over  one  eye,  thereby 
suggesting  curiously  that  his  blindness  was  in  effect  related 
to  his  Blakean  vision  ("blind  .  .  .  black  .  .  .  wan  [i.e.  bleak 
as  explained  above]  phwinshogue"). 

Of  the  catalogue  of  "furniture"  for  this  house  listed  on 
pages  183-84  of  the  Wake,  a  few  items  are  pertinent  here: 
(i)  the  "bouchers"  (hne  12)  refers  to  Blake's  wife,  Cath- 
erine Boucher;  (2)  the  "blackeye  lenses"  (line  17)  to  Blake's 
way  of  seeing,  his  vision,  and  again  Joyce's  glasses  and  blind- 
ness; (3)  the  "seedy  ejaculations,  hmerick  damns,  crocodile 
tears,  spilt  ink,  blasphematory  spits"  (lines  23-24)  probably 
to  Blake's  penchant  for  damning  in  rhyme  all  those  who 
damned  him  in  one  way  or  another.^^  Joyce's  paragraph 


196  GLECKNER 

concludes  {184:f-io)  with  a  reference  to  his  own  Chamber 
Music  (and  hence  probably  Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence  and 
of  Experience)  and  his  fundamental  kinship  with  Blake  via 
the  exile  theme.  The  ''ineluctable  phantom"  is  most  likely 
Blake's  ''spectre": 

My  Spectre  around  me  night  &  nighty 
Like  a  Wild  beast  guards  my  way. 

This  entire  passage  of  course  is  related  in  turn  to  that  on 
pages  18^-86  of  the  Wake  describing  Blake's  process  of  cor- 
rosive etching,  his  mythographic  history,  the  cycle  of  unity 
to  division  to  unity,  and  the  proliferation  of  mythological 
characters  in  the  prophetic  books  in  order  to  chronicle 
minutely  "his  own  individual  person  hfe  unlivable"  (186:3): 
"the  first  till  last  alshemist  wrote  over  every  square  inch  of 
the  only  foolscap  available,  his  own  body,  till  by  its  corrosive 
sublimation  one  continuous  present  tense  integument  slowly 
unfolded  all  marryvoising  moodmoulded  cyclewheeling  his- 
tory." 14 

188:^-^  To  all  of  this,  of  course,  Shaun  points  as  justifica- 
tion for  his  derision  and  disgust.  And  Joyce  punctuates 
Shaun's  revulsion  with  a  nice  irony  via  Blake's  name:  "It  is 
looking  pretty  black  against  you,  we  suggest,  Sheem  avick." 
For  the  more  Shem  looks  like  Blake,  the  more  he  looks  black 
to  Shaun  —  and  to  the  world.  This  is  precisely  what  Blake 
meant  when  he  wrote  in  The  Everlasting  Gospel: 

Both  read  the  Bible  day  &  night. 

But  thou  leadst  black  where  I  read  white. 

As  Shaun  continues  to  pry  into  Shem's  character  and 
career  (p.  188)  further  Blakean  echoes  are  heard,  most  nota- 
bly his  early  satire  An  Island  in  the  Moon  (which  Joyce  calls 
"this  two  easter  island  on  the  piejaw  of  hilarious  heaven"  — 
188:10-11)  and  The  Book  of  Thel  (see  below,  section  iii, 
for  the  occurrence  of  Thel's  name  in  Finnegan).  Shaun  also 


Joyce  and  Blake  197 

calls  Shem  "anarch,  egoarch,  hiresiarch"  {188:i6),  an  echo 
of  Joyce's  description  of  Blake  in  his  Trieste  lecture:  "that 
undisciphned  and  visionary  heresiarch." 

Blake  next  appears  in  the  "Feenichts  Playhouse"  produc- 
tion as  Glugg-Shem  in  Book  11  of  Finnegan.  He  is  introduced 
immediately  as  "glugg  (Mr.  Seumas  McQuillad  .  .  .)y  the 
bold  bad  bleak  boy  of  the  storybooks"  (219:22-24).  And  on 
page  229  Glugg,  Shem,  and  Blake-Joyce  all  coalesce  in  a  pas- 
sage describing  the  writing  of  Ulysses,  Blake's  Songs  and  The 
Four  Zoas.  Still  later  Glugg  is  described  as  "born  of  thug 
tribe  into  brood  blackmail"  (240:i2),  a  passage  which  looks 
forward  to  the  later  description  of  Blake  as  a  "pair  of  men" 
named  "MacBlakes"  {409:2i-2^),  the  two  "a"  sounds  and 
the  "m"  and  "b"  merely  being  reversed  (i.e.  Black-Make, 
Blake-Mac,  black-mail ) .  The  culmination  of  the  mockery  of 
Glugg  comes  in  a  remarkable  Swedenborgian-Blakean  pas- 
sage, in  which  Joyce  makes  use  of  a  number  of  themes  com- 
mon to  both  mystics:  the  proprium  or  selfhood,  light  vs. 
heat,  wrath  and  charity,  "thisworlders"  and  other-worlders, 
the  concept  of  "states,"  devils  and  angels,  the  four  points  of 
the  compass,  eternal  conjunctions,  and  the  theory  of  cor- 
respondences {251:4-iy).  Blake  is  referred  to  as  the  outcast 
Glugg,  "marrer  of  the  sward  incoronate"  (250:35),  "Black- 
arss"  the  singer  inspired  by  "a  fammished  devil."  "The  specks 
on  his  lapspan  are  his  foul  deed  thougths,  wishmarks  of  mad 
imogenation"  {2Sl:ii-iy). 

287:i8-ig  The  first  major  identification  of  Blake  with 
Swift  — and  with  Joyce,  Shem,  Dolph  (one  of  the  twins  of 
hce),  and  Berkeley.  Although  I  can  sympathize  with  Mrs. 
Glasheen's  confusion,  in  A  Census  of  Finnegans  Wake, 
about  Berkeley's  role  in  the  book,  it  is  clear  that  on  occasion 
Joyce  uses  Blake-Berkeley  as  brother  idealists,  visionaries  (cf. 
Berkeley's  Theory  of  Vision  and  Blake's  constant  preoccupa- 
tion with  perception),  imaginative  creators  of  worlds  of  the 
mind,  of  eternity.  Then  too  both  were  rebels,  as  was  Joyce 
himself,  so  that  in  the  present  passage  Dolph  is  said  to  have 


198  GLECKNER 

"coached  rebelliumtending  mikes  of  his  same  and  over  his 
own  choirage  at  Backlane  Univarsity''  (287:29-30),  anagram- 
matically  Blakean  University.  The  passage  goes  on  to  make 
the  Blake  reference  more  expHcit  through  mention  of  Dolph's 
"doublecressing  twofold  thruths"  (288:3)  ^^^  Druidic  lore 
(288:^),  the  first  an  allusion  to  Blake's  system  of  four-fold 
vision,  the  second  to  his  interest  in  the  history  of  the  Druids 
in  England.  Finally  Dolph  and  his  twin  brother  Kev  almost 
come  to  blows,  and  Joyce  with  an  ambiguous  reference  to 
Blake  uses  him  to  apply  to  both  brothers:  ''pray  for  blaa- 
blaablack  sheep"  (301:6).  The  ''Blake"  sheep  are  of  course 
Dolph's,  Shem's,  and  the  black  sheep  Kev's;  yet  to  Kev  Dolph 
is  the  black  sheep  of  the  family  because  of  his  Blakeanism. 

338:^  ff  In  the  Butt  and  Taff  radio  skit  Blake  appears  sev- 
eral times.  He  is  at  first  associated  by  Taff  with  Butt.  Taff 
urges  Butt  to  tell  his  story  of  how  he  shot  the  Russian  Gen- 
eral: "And  may  he  be  too  an  intrepidation  of  our  dreams 
which  we  foregot  at  wiking  when  the  morn  hath  razed  out 
hmpalove  and  the  bleakfrost  chilled  our  ravery"  (338:29-31 ). 
But  Taff  too  is  described  in  terms  of  Blake,  as  a  "blackseer" 
(340:1^) y  characterizing  his  essentially  un-Blakean  vision.  He 
is  the  Shaun  to  Butt's  Shem  and  his  comments  punctuating 
Butt's  account  of  the  Crimean  War  reflect  his  relative 
myopia.  Properly,  then,  he  is  presented  as  trying  "to  regulect 
all  the  straggles  for  wife  in  the  rut  of  the  past  through  the 
widnows  in  effigies  keening  after  the  blank  sheets  in  their 
faminy  to  the  relix  of  old  decency  from  over  draught" 
(340:i^-i6).  He  is  a  looker  to  the  past,  a  regulator,  a  keeper 
of  the  codes  of  "decency,"  and  yet  at  the  same  time  he  is 
the  gross  sensualist  who  looks  to  the  rutting  past  through 
what  Blake  might  call  the  narrow  "widnows"  of  his  bodily 
cavern,  that  is  his  senses  only.^^ 

Again  at  the  beginning  of  his  self-defense  against  the 
charges  of  debauchery  and  lewdness  Butt  is  described  in 
Blakean  terms  (the  white  to  Taff's  black):  "with  a  gisture 
expansive  of  Mr  Lhugewhite  Cadderpollard  with  sunflawered 


Joyce  and  Blake  199 

beautonhole  pulled  up  point  blanck  by  mailbag  mundaynism 
at  Oldbally  Court"  {350:io-i2).  That  is,  like  Blake's  "Cat- 
terpiller  on  the  Leaf"  {Gates  of  Paradise),  and  shining  in 
the  light  of  Blake's  sunflower,  Butt  comes  face  to  face  with 
the  sensual  world,  Shaun  the  Postman,  who  ''flaws"  the  sun- 
flower in  the  same  way  that  Sinclair  Lewis'  Mike  Monday 
(a  parody  of  evangehst  Billy  Sunday)  in  Babbitt  flaws  the 
light  of  Christianity,  even  to  the  point  of  perverting  Sunday 
to  Monday.  Finally  "blanck"  suggests  German  blank,  which 
means  shining  or  white,  to  complete  the  sunlit  context  of 
Butt's  Blakean  characteristics.  Since  Joyce,  however,  seldom 
leaves  things  black  and  white  he  also  characterizes  Butt  as  a 
teller  of  outright  lies:  ''Mr  Lhugewhite"  is  equivalent  to  Mr. 
Blanke  Luge,  a  cad,  and  ultimately  the  two  figures  will  merge 
into  Tuff  and  Batt,  each  the  "viseversion"  of  the  other 

(549.7). 

381:iyff  Hce's  ultimate  fall,  drunk  and  singing,  finds 
him  "overwhelmed  .  .  .  with  black  ruin  like  a  sponge  out 
of  water."  This  Joyce  apparently  compares  to  the  many  falls 
recounted  by  Blake  in  his  poetry  (Blake's  "runes");  yet  hce 
goes  down  singing  a  Blakean  song,  "allocutioning  in  bell- 
cantos  .  .  .  starkened  by  the  most  regal  of  belches  .  .  .  the 
blackberd's  ballad  Fve  a  terrible  errible  lot  todue  todie  todue 
tootorribleday'  {381:18-2^).  The  "blackberd's"  is  a  most 
complex  reference,  all  of  which  I  do  not  understand,  for  it 
encompasses  the  four  and  twenty  blackbirds  baked  in  a  pie, 
Blackbeard  the  Pirate,  Jack  Yeats'  famous  painting  of  The 
Ballad  Singer,  and  Blake's  bard  of  Songs  of  Experience,  who 
"Present,  Past,  &  Future  sees." 

In  hce's  drunken  dream  of  the  honeymoon  voyage  of 
Tristram  and  Iseult,  Blake  appears  in  a  much  more  familiar 
role,  that  of  the  artist-creator,  "Mesh,  the  cutter  of  the  reed, 
in  one  of  the  farback,  pitchblack  centuries  when  who  made 
the  world"  (385:6-7).  Mesh  is  of  course  Shem,  and  his  title 
here  locates  the  Blakean  context  as  Songs  of  Innocence,  in 
which  Blake's  piper  "pluck'd  a  hollow  reed"  to  write  his 


200  GLECKNER 

''happy  songs."  ^^  The  "pitchblack  centuries"  then  are  not 
black  at  all  but  the  Blakean  white  of  innocence,  a  world 
created  by  the  artist  as  an  Edenic  realm  ("when  who  [i.e. 
he]  made  the  world").  This  world  (''neer  the  Nodderlands 
Nurskery")  is  peopled  by  '  whiteboys  and  oakboys"  (for  even 
Blake's  little  black  boy,  we  recall,  is  essentially  white)  and 
"piping  tom  boys,  raising  hell  while  the  sin  was  shining" 
{38S:g-ii).  The  allusions  to  Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence 
fairly  tumble  over  each  other  here:  "The  Lamb,"  "The 
Ecchoing  Green,"  "The  Chimney  Sweeper,"  "Nurse's  Song," 
"The  School  Boy,"  "The  Little  Black  Boy,"  "A  Cradle 
Song."  And  just  as  the  "old  folks"  in  "The  Ecchoing  Green" 
lament  the  lost  days  of  youth,  so  too  do  the  four  old  men  of 
Finnegans  Wake  (Johnny,  Marcus,  Lucas,  and  Matt)  yearn 
for  "the  wald  times  and  the  fald  times"  and  listen  eagerly 
"spraining  their  ears  for  the  millennium"  (SSGij-ii),  the 
recorso,  the  achieving  of  a  Blakean  innocence  with  wisdom. 
405.7  if  Book  III  of  Finnegans  Wake  is  dominated  by  the 
figure  of  Shaun,  presenting  himself  to  the  people  as  their 
leader,  saviour,  and  hero.  And  since  he  must  constantly 
justify  himself  by  disparaging  Shem  (whose  letter  he  carries), 
Blake  references  appear  in  abundance.  Here  again  black  is 
often  white  and  white  black;  sometimes  one  of  the  meanings 
is  singled  out  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other,  sometimes  both 
are  employed  to  suggest  the  fundamental  bivalence  of  all 
hfe,  the  contraries  Blake  and  Joyce  both  insist  upon.  To 
support  this  usage  Joyce  on  occasion  uses  another  Blakean 
device,  one  which  is  indeed  inherent  in  his  treatment  of 
Shem  and  Shaun  throughout  Finnegans  Wake.  Shem  is  the 
outcast,  the  scum,  the  evil,  the  devil  from  Shaun's  point  of 
view;  and  in  the  same  breath  Shaun  of  course  describes  him- 
self as  the  opposite  of  these  —  the  conventional  good  man, 
indeed  the  angel  who  brings  good  tidings  of  great  joy.  Hence 
Joyce's  picture  of  Shaun  on  page  ^o^  of  Finnegan  is  doubly 
satiric  —  for  it  is  seen  through  Shaun's  self-approving  eyes 
but  couched  in  Blakean  imagery  of  conventional  dullness, 


Joyce  and  Blake  201 

time-bound  senses,  and  worldly  tyranny:  "Shaun  (holy  mes- 
songer  angels  be  uninterruptedly  nudging  him  among  and 
along  the  winding  ways  of  random  ever!)  Shaun  in  proper 
person  (now  may  all  the  blueblacksliding  constellations  con- 
tinue to  shape  his  changeable  timetable! )  stood  before  me" 
(405.7-11).  The  references  are  to  Blake's  time-locked,  re- 
stricted, confined,  hypocritical  fallen  world,  enchained  by 
the  firmament  of  stars  to  keep  it  from  falling  to  pieces,  the 
world  of  Songs  of  Experience ,  the  fallen  Urizen,  Generation. 

Joyce's  ambiguous  usage  of  black-white  is  most  clear  once 
Shaun  begins  his  address  to  the  people;  for  he  wavers  con- 
stantly between  an  inability  really  to  understand  the  mes- 
sage (the  letter)  of  Shem-Blake-Joyce  and  just  enough  under- 
standing to  thoroughly  repel  his  conventional  eyes  and  mind. 
His  confusion  is  immediately  apparent  as  he  tells  of  meeting 
two  men  'whom  I  shuffled  hands  with  named  MacBlacks  — 
I  think  their  names  is  MacBlakes"  {409:22-2^).  The  shuf- 
fling of  hands  is  the  key  to  the  confusion,  for  Shaun  cannot 
tell  black  from  Blake.  Joyce,  however,  tells  us  clearly  that 
"their  [the  MacBlacks']  names  is  [i.e.  nemesis]  is  Mac- 
Blakes." Thus,  triumphantly  and  ignorantly  Shaun  can  pro- 
claim that  he  now  has  the  whole  truth  from  Blake's 
"prophecies.  After  suns  and  moons,  dews  and  wettings,  thun- 
ders and  fires,  comes  sabotag"  {409:28-2g).  The  reference  is 
to  Blake's  "A  Song  of  Liberty"  {Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell)y  in  which  the  Shaun-like  King  "With  thunder  and 
fire,  leading  his  starry  hosts  thro'  the  waste  wilderness  .  .  . 
promulgates  his  ten  commands."  For  Shaun  this  leads  to 
the  sabbath,  to  the  day  of  contented  rest;  for  Blake  it  leads 
to  sabotage,  for  "the  son  of  fire  in  his  eastern  cloud,  while 
the  morning  plumes  her  golden  breast,  /  Spurning  the  clouds 
written  with  curses,  stamps  the  stony  law  to  dust."  It  is  of 
course  the  difference  between  the  ignorant  darkness  of  the 
conventional  sabbath,  and  the  blazing  light  of  a  new  dawn. 

Shaun's  description  of  this  world,  then,  is  truer  than  he 
knows,  for  he  says  that  he  is  "fed  up  be  going  circulating 


202  GLECKNER 

about  them  new  hikler's  highways  hke  them  nameless  souls 
.  .  .  till  it's  rusty  October  in  this  bleak  forest"  {410:y-g). 
It  is  a  bleak  forest  indeed,  Blake's  "forests  of  the  night/'  in 
which  the  terrible  tiger  burns  bright  waiting  to  devour  the 
lamb. 

425:9  if  In  turning  from  the  world  to  the  letter  Shaun  is 
provoked  by  the  people  to  boast  that  he  could  do  much  bet- 
ter if  he  really  tried;  and  in  the  course  of  his  attack  upon 
Shem  and  his  language  Shaun  again  takes  Blake's  name  in 
vain  while  at  the  same  time  seeing  himself  as  Blake's  piper  of 
Songs  of  Innocence.  He  begins  by  claiming  that  he  is  ''in- 
nocent of  disseminating  the  foul  emanation"  of  Shem's  pen, 
an  outrageous  placing  of  himself  among  Blake's  innocents. 
At  the  same  time  the  emanation  in  Blake's  view  of  man  is 
the  Shemmian  side  indeed,  passionate,  feminine,  and  crea- 
tive (just  as  Shem  is  constantly  associated  with  and  cham- 
pioned by  alp),  while  the  Shaunian  side  is  the  spectre,  the 
reasoning  power,  the  male  destroyer  and  devourer.  Thus  if 
Shaun  did  write  his  own  version  of  the  letter  it  would  be  a 
perversion  of  the  eternal  vision  of  the  poet.  Joyce's  paragraph 
then  is  punctuated  with  words  and  phrases  to  suggest  the 
perversion  of  Shaun's  contemplated  opus:  ''blurry  wards," 
"allergrossest  transfusiasm,"  "incredible  faith,"  "take  pot- 
lood  and  introvent  it  Paatryk  just  Hke  a  work  of  merit,"  "im- 
mature and  a  nayophight."  But,  happily,  Shaun  "would  never 
for  anything  take  so  much  trouble  of  such  doing";  and  he 
swears  (lines  35-36)  by  Blake's  child  on  a  cloud  and  the 
piper's  pipe  of  the  "Introduction"  to  Songs  of  Innocence  to 
destroy  all  such  writers  as  Shem,  Blake,  Joyce.  For  they,  after 
all,  are  a  composite  "bogus  bolshy  of  a  shame  .  .  .  con- 
versant with  in  audible  black  and  prink"  (lines  22-2^)  — 
that  is,  Blake's  poetry  and  designs,  his  printing-ink. 

447  ff  After  Shaun's  metamorphosis  into  Jaun  he  is 
shown  even  more  glaringly  in  his  proper  light  —  delivering  a 
hypocritical,  trite,  sickeningly  moral,  jingoistic  sermon.  Like 
Shaun,  however,  Jaun  too,  in  the  courting  scene,  invokes 


Joyce  and  Blake  203 

Blake's  piper  of  innocence,  "my  singasongapiccolo  to  pipe 
musicall  airs  on  numberous  fairyaciodes"  {4S0:i8-2o) .  This 
is  immediately  preceded  by  Blake's  name  (line  18) ^  bound 
up  as  we  have  seen  it  before  with  Blackbeard  and  blackbirds; 
but  here  the  allusions  are  extended  to  draw  into  the  black- 
white  contrast  a  middle  ground,  gray:  ''Dorian  blackbudds." 
The  piper  reference,  then,  is  corroborated  nicely  by  the  ref- 
erence to  Billy  Budd,  Melville's  personification  of  innocence, 
and  Dorian  Gray  is  sandwiched  in  between.^'^  Jaun,  however, 
cannot  allow  himself  such  nonsense,  and  his  essential  nature 
finally  breaks  through  his  momentary  gay,  idyllic  vision: 
''But  enough  of  greenwood's  gossip  [an  allusion  perhaps  to 
the  first  fine  of  Blake's  "Laughing  Song"] .  Birdsnests  is  birds- 
nests"  (450:^2-^^). 

The  final  two  allusions  to  Blake  in  this  Jaun  section  are 
again  ambiguous.  The  first,  at  least  on  the  surface,  paints 
Jaun  black,  for  after  brief  laughter  (almost  as  if  he  forgets 
himself  and  becomes  Shem-like  for  a  moment),  "swifter  as 
mercury  he  wheels  right  round  starnly  on  the  Rizzies  sud- 
denly, with  his  gimlets  blazing  rather  sternish  (how  black 
like  thunder!),  to  see  what's  loose"  {4S4:2o-2^).  Literally 
this  is  truly  Shaun  —  swift,  mercurial,  postman-like,  gov- 
erned by  Blake's  chain  of  stars  mentioned  earlier,  black  and 
threatening  like  thunderclouds.  Yet  at  the  same  time  Joyce 
reveals  to  us  Shem  —  Swift-like,  a  corrosive  sublimate  (mer- 
cury), Sterne-like,  Blake-like,  Los-like  (Blake's  mythological 
personification  of  energetic  creation).  Thus  again  Shaun  is 
truer  than  he  knows  when  he  later  says  of  his  brother,  "And 
we're  the  closest  of  chems.  Mark  my  use  of  you,  cog!  Take 
notice  how  I  yemploy,  crib!  Be  ware  as  you,  I  foil,  coppy!" 
(454:3-5).  And  he  concludes  his  speech  with  a  typical  attack 
upon  Shem  —  with  Swift  and  Blake  again  appearing:  "The 
burnt  out  mesh  .  .  .  scaly  skin  and  all,  with  his  black- 
guarded eye,  and  the  goatsbeard  in  his  buttinghole  of 
Shemuel  Tulliver,  me  grandsourd"  {464:g-i^). 

Ironically  we  discover  that  it  is  Shaun,  not  Shem,  who  is 


204  GLECKNER 

''burnt  out/'  and  as  he  lies  sprawled  across  County  Meath, 
the  people  sit  in  judgment  over  him  —  and  with  them  Blake, 
or  as  Joyce  has  it,  Blunt  Blake,  pen  in  hand,  the  attacker 
of  everything  Shaun  stands  for:  ''As  were  you  suppose  to  go 
and  push  with  your  bluntblank  pin  in  hand  upinto  his 
fleshasplush  cushionettes  of  some  chubby  boybold  love  of 
an  angel"  {474:i^-i^).^^ 

Throughout  the  "inquest"  over  Shaun- Yawn's  slowly  fad- 
ing body,  Blake  references  are  fairly  frequent,  though  several 
are  far  from  clear  to  me.  For  example  when  alp  begins  to 
speak  from  somewhere  within  the  depths  of  Yawn's  being, 
she  is  interrupted  rudely  by  one  of  the  Four  Old  Men  who 
makes  fun  of  her  via  an  allusion  to  the  serpent's  temptation 
of  Eve  (494:i5/f).  The  temptation,  however,  is  seen  las- 
civiously as  the  attack  of  a  pervert  (masquerading  as  a  sacra- 
mental offering)  upon  a  lewd  wanton.  To  translate  this  into 
the  black-white  Blakean  pattern:  black  interprets  the  attack 
of  black  against  white  as  in  reality  an  attack  of  white  against 
black.  Thus  the  pervert  side  of  the  Swiftian  image  is  the 
tempter  ("obesendean"),  associated  with  that  major  mys- 
tery (as  Mrs.  Glasheen  calls  him),  Magrath  ("Dan  Ma- 
graw"),  who  masquerades  as  Blake-white  ("blancmange"). 
The  references  to  Eve  are  equally  complex  since  they  involve 
Blake's  fallen  woman,  Heva,  and  also  a  pregnant  Mary 
("Emfang  de  Maurya's").  The  whole  scene  is  obscured  by 
a  kind  of  sooty  cloud  (German  Russ  in  "bullsrusshius" ) 
evoked  by  a  portmanteau  word  which  also  alludes  to  Moses; 
and  by  the  setting  at  Belshazzer's  Feast  (including  the 
Schottshrift) y  which  is  also  somehow  a  "writing  academy" 
where  Swift  and  Blake  presumably  create  their  prophecies; 
and  by  the  over-all  camouflage.  However  obscure  all  these 
references  are,  and  however  strained  the  Blake  usage  seems, 
the  latter  is  corroborated  almost  immediately  by  the  equa- 
tion of  Sully  ("Magrath's  thug")  with  Shem  and  Blake  (cf. 
240:12) :  "a  barracker  associated  with  tinkers,  the  blackhand, 
Shovellyvans,  wreuter  of  annoyimgmost  letters  and  skirriless 


Joyce  and  Blake  205 

ballets"  (495:1-3).  The  ''letters"  are  of  course  the  letter  of 
Finnegans  Wake,  scratched  up  (German  reuten)  by  the  hen, 
its  riddle  (German  Renter)  slowly  unravelled,  delivered  by 
that  archetypal  news  agent,  Shaun  the  Post  (Baron  von 
Reuter).  Finally  toward  the  end  of  the  same  passage  Blake 
is  again  paired  with  Sully  via  the  motto  hanging  in  that 
"leechers  .  .  .  Saxontannery" :  Honi  soit  qui  mal  y  pense  — 
or  as  Joyce  transmutes  it,  incorporating  Blake's  supposed 
Irish  name  and  his  engraving  trade,  "O'Neill  saw  Queen 
Molly's  pants:  and  much  admired  engraving"  {495:26-28). 
Blake's  "Irish  ancestry"  is  alluded  to  again  a  few  pages  later 
where  he  is  clearly  described  as  a  son  of  Erin:  "grianblachk 
sun  of  gan  greyne  Eireann"  (503:2^).  Swift  may  also  be  pres- 
ent here  in  German  gang. 

In  the  retelling  of  the  Fall  in  Phoenix  Park,  there  are  a 
baffling  series  of  references  to  Blake  and  his  works.  I  give 
them  here  simply,  with  only  such  comment  as  will  point  the 
reference  rather  than  trying  to  elucidate,  even  briefly,  its 
usage  in  the  context. 

"Blondman's  blaff!"  {S08:iy)  may  be  an  allusion  to 
Blake's  poem  "Blind-Man's  Buff"  in  the  Poetical  Sketches 
which  deals  with  what  Joyce  may  have  construed  as  a  play 
version  of  the  crime  in  the  park.  Blake's  name  seems  to  be 
buried  neatly  in  the  same  line,  in  "skib  leaked."  The  Blakean 
context  of  Poetical  Sketches  is  corroborated  by  the  reference 
in  hne  29  to  the  song  beginning  "My  silks  and  fine  array," 
which  Joyce  renders  as  "Silks  apeel  and  sulks  alusty."  This  is 
followed  by  an  echo  (Hne  33)  of  the  Blake-white  motif  and 
an  evoking  of  the  figure  of  Nick,  who  is  often  equatable  with 
Shem,  Joyce,  and  Blake  ("Both  were  white  in  black  arpists 
at  cloever  spilling,  knickt?" ) . 

Towards  the  end  of  this  section  of  Finnegan  hce  himself 
appears  to  deliver  an  eloquent  defense  of  himself  and  his 
actions,  in  the  context  of  which  Blake  plays  his  now  familiar 
ambiguous  role.  First  of  all,  like  hce,  he  has  freed  the  en- 
slaved through  his  engraved  books  {S4S:2^,  34).  But  he  has 


2o6  GLECKNER 

also  been  calumniated,  impersonated  by  ''bleakmealers" 
(S4S:2y).  The  double  entendre  is  clear:  the  masqueraders  of 
HCE  and  Blake,  those  who  tell  the  false  tall  tales,  are  black- 
mailers (an  allusion  to  Shaun  the  Post)  while  the  true  "I" 
(line  2y)  who  wandered  the  streets  of  London  is  Blake-HCE. 
London  I  use  advisedly  here  since  several  of  the  lines  point- 
edly echo  Blake's  great  poem  ''London":  "in  street  wauks 
that  are  darkest  I  debelledem  superb"  (hues  28-29)  and  ''in 
black  pitts  of  the  pestered  Lenfant  he  is  dummed"  (lines 
3S~3^)y  ^^^  latter  incorporating  a  reference  to  Blake's  un- 
complimentary view  of  Pitt  as  well  as  to  the  plagued  infant 
of  "London." 

563:4  ff  As  Karl  Kiralis  notes  (MFS,  Winter  1958-59), 
the  subject  here  is  Jerry,  one  of  the  Porter  twins,  who  is  as- 
sociated with  Shem,  Joyce,  and  Blake.  The  first  reference  is 
to  Blake's  engraved  ("craven")  and  self-"printed"  works  — 
just  as  earlier  he  was  characterized  by  the  printing  ink  trope; 
"he  has  pipettishly  bespilled  himself  from  his  foundingpen 
as  illspent  from  inkinghorn.  He  is  jem  job  joy  pip"  —  that  is, 
Blake's  Job  and  the  "Infant  Joy"  and  piper  of  innocence.  He 
is  also  Blake's  "The  Lamb"  and  the  hand  that  "wrought" 
"The  Tyger"  (563:8-9).  Next  Joyce  curiously  couples  Blake's 
name  with  Byron's  [lines  n-iy]: 

He  will  be  quite  within  the  pale  [the  English  "Pale"  in 
Ireland,  Dublin,  Ireland  generally,  plus  Blake  as  white] 
when  with  lordbeeron  brow  he  vows  him  so  tosset  [Ger- 
man tosen,  to  rage,  roar]  to  be  of  the  sir  Blake  tribes  bleak 
while  through  life's  unblest  [life's  sun  blest,  but  unblest 
by  the  people  of  course]  he  rodes  [German  roden,  to  root 
out]  backs  of  bannars  [bans  plus  arses] .  Are  you  not  some- 
what bulgar  with  your  bowels  [Blake's  poem,  "When 
Klopstock  England  defied"]?  Whatever  do  you  mean  with 
bleak?  With  pale  blake  I  write  tintingface.  .  .  .  And  with 
steelwhite  and  blackmail  I  ha'scint  for  my  sweet  an 
anemone's  letter. 

And,  finally,  with  references  to  both  Porter  twins,  the 
Blakean  and  Joycean  contraries,  "I  will  to  leave  a  my  copper- 


Joyce  and  Blake  207 

wise  blessing  [Blake's  engravings  on  copper]  between  the  pair 
of  them"  (hnes  29-30).  All  in  all  the  page  is  a  major  text 
for  understanding  both  the  significance  of  the  Blake  allusions 
in  Finnegans  Wake  and  Joyce's  technique  in  making  those 
allusions. 

The  final  references  to  Blake  occur  as  the  new  Viconian 
cycle  begins,  with  Shaun  in  the  ascendancy,  Blake-Shem  in 
decline:  "So  an  inedible  yellowmeat  [French  jaune  meat, 
hence  Shaun-meat]  turns  out  the  invasable  blackth" 
(594:32-33);  "and  pfor  to  pfinish  our  pfun  of  a  pfan  coald- 
ing  the  keddle  mickwhite  [i.e.  MacBlake  plus  Mick-Nick]; 
sure,  straight,  slim,  sturdy,  serene,  synthetical,  swift" 
(596:31-33).  Also  "Will  [Blake],  make  a  newman  if  any- 
worn"  (596:36-597:1)  "In  the  wake  of  the  blackshape,  Nat- 
tenden  Sorte"  {608:28-2g).  The  new  age  is  ushered  in  via 
the  debate  between  the  old  druidic  mystical  mythology 
(Berkeley-Blake-Shem)  and  the  new  reality  of  St.  Patrick 
(Shaun). ^^  The  long  passage  (pp.  611-12)  introducing 
"pidgin  fella  Balkelly"  (Blake-Berkeley)  is  another  remarka- 
ble Blakean  tour  de  force,  with  allusions  to  the  Four  Zoas, 
Albion,  the  true  reality  of  vision  as  opposed  to  that  of  this 
"vegetable"  universe,  Blake's  engraving  and  mythology  gen- 
erally (as  well  as  his  obscurity  when  compared  with  this 
new  world  of  hght).  The  passage  is  too  long  to  quote  in  its 
entirety,  but  here  are  some  of  the  key  phrases:  "alb  be- 
longahim"  (Albion);  "all  too  many  much  illusiones  through 
photoprismic  velamina  of  hueful  panepiphanal  world  specta- 
curum  of  Lord  Joss  [a  Pidgin  English  corruption  of  Deus], 
the  of  which  zoantholitic  furniture,  from  mineral  through 
vegetal  to  animal";  "he  savvy  inside  true  inwardness  of  reality 
...  all  objects  .  .  .  allside  showed  themselves  in  trues 
coloribus  resplendent  with  sextuple  gloria  of  light  actually 
retained,  untisintus,  inside  them";  "with  other  words  verbi- 
gratiagrading  from  murmurulentous  till  stridulocelerious  .  .  . 
with  diminishing  claractinism,  augumentationed  himself  in 
caloripeia  to  vision  so  throughsighty"    (Blake's   increasing 


208  GLECKNER 

complexity,  obscurity,  and  depth  of  vision).  St.  Patrick's 
reply  is  Shaun-like  in  its  attack  upon  this  Blakean  obscurity: 
'Tou  pore  shiroskuro  blackinwhitepaddynger  [Blake-white- 
Irishman]  .  .  .  celestial  from  principalest  [pale  Blake]  of 
Iro's  Irismans  ruinboon  pot  before,  (for  beingtime  [Blake's 
Four  Zoas]  monkblinders  timeblinged  completamentarily 
murkblankered  in  their  neutrolysis  between  the  possible  vir- 
iditude  of  the  sager  and  the  probable  eruberuption  of  the 
saint)"  {612:18-2^). 

"  'Tis  gone  infarover.  So  fore  now,  dayleash"  {613:8).  And 
it  is,  of  course,  Shaun's  day,  the  day  of  Dear  Dirty  Dublin, 
of  Blake's  London  once  more.  The  dream  is  over. 


Ill 


As  Campbell,  Robinson,  and  others  have  pointed  out, 
"Finnegans  Wake  in  toto  is  the  fourfold  aspect  of  every  liv- 
ing moment:  the  whole  round  is  entirely  present  with  every 
tick  of  the  clock"  {Skeleton  Key,  p.  ^40).  Hence  the  many 
groups  of  four  in  the  Wake,  including  Blake's  Four  Zoas,  the 
mythological  equivalents  of  the  four  aspects  of  the  grand 
man,  Albion.  Indeed  the  Zoas  are  so  ubiquitous  that  one  is 
tempted  to  see  them  everywhere.^^  The  key  to  Joyce's  use  of 
them  hes  in  his  phrase  ''Zoantholitic  furniture."  In  addition 
to  the  obvious  pertinence  of  their  fourness,  Joyce  I  think  was 
capitalizing  on  the  idea  of  ''furniture"  as  used  by  the  printer, 
especially  since  he  constantly  thinks  of  Blake  as  printer  in 
the  Wake.  This  kind  of  furniture  consists  of  pieces  of  lead 
placed  around  and  between  the  type  or  matter  to  create 
spaces  and  to  fasten  the  matter  to  the  chase.  In  any  case, 
whether  this  is  so  or  not,  fours  of  almost  any  kind  clearly 
are  the  furniture  at  Finnegan's  wake. 

Of  much  greater  importance  to  the  student  of  Blake  and 
Joyce,  however,  is  Joyce's  use  of  specific  Blakean  character 


Joyce  and  Blake  209 

names,  particularly  Los,  who  is  of  course  related  to  the  Four 
Zoas,  yet  not  one  of  them.  He  is  for  Blake  the  creator,  the 
artist,  the  artificer  of  eternity;  he  is  associated  with  the  sun 
and  with  poetry;  he  is  the  personification  of  Time;  and  his 
symbols  are  the  hammer  and  anvil.  In  Finnegans  Wakey 
then,  he  is  properly  everywhere,  yet  curiously  difficult  to  lo- 
cate because  his  name  is  easily  buried  amid  the  melee  of 
Joycean  languages  and  puns.  For  example,  he  is  readily  ab- 
sorbed into  the  words  "loss"  and  "loose"  (German  los)  or, 
in  reverse,  into  "sol"  or  "sole."  And  just  as  Blake's  own  name 
is  used  ambiguously,  so  too  Los  can  be  the  creative  spirit  as 
well  as  the  destroyer  (as.  los  means  destruction,  loss  in  its 
fullest  sense,  and  in  Swedish  and  Danish  Ids  is  associated 
with  both  falseness  and  fire).  A  number  of  the  following 
references  then  may  be  suspect,  but  should  not  be  ruled  out 
offhand;  for  even  where  a  Los  usage  is  certain,  the  context 
is  often  strange  enough  to  lead  one  to  expect  him  most  any- 
where (as  in  the  case  of  the  Four  Zoas  above).  One  major 
check,  of  course,  is  Joyce's  association  of  Los  with  Shem  and 
his  kin  — Blake,  Joyce,  Swift,  Sterne,  Nick,  Gripes,  Glugg, 
etc.  In  the  following  paragraphs  I  do  not  comment  upon 
each  reference  but  only  those  which  present  Los  in  his  most 
characteristic  and  associative  form. 

47:ig  Perhaps  Los,  associated  properly  with  Sophocles, 
Shakespeare,  Dante,  and  (I  think,  consistent  with  Blake's 
usage)  "a  non-Moses."  Other  brief  references  which  need  no 
elucidation  are  378:ij  (with  Lucifer)  and  470:^o  (with 
Christ  and  Agni). 

S7:26-2y  The  reference  here  is  a  complex  one,  outside  of 
the  Lewis  Carroll  allusions,  for  it  presupposes  some  knowl- 
edge of  at  least  two  of  Blake's  early  prophecies.  The  Book  of 
Urizen  and  The  Book  of  Los.  The  first  deals  with  the  cosmic 
fall  of  Urizen  into  chaos,  indeed  to  the  brink  of  nonentity, 
and  the  subsequent  limit  to  that  fall  placed  by  the  divine  hand 
—  to  enable  a  world  to  be  built  as  the  first  step  toward  re- 
generation and  ultimately  reunion.  Los  is  that  aspect  of 


210  GLECKNER 

Urizen  which  created  out  of  the  nothingness  a  world;  Urizen 
becomes  its  Jehovah-hke  tyrant.  Thus  in  the  passage  Joyce 
clearly  refers  not  only  to  the  fall  (of  the  dark  side  of  Los, 
blind  Sol)  but  to  the  beginnings  of  life  in  the  quivering 
globule  of  blood  {Book  of  Urizen,  w,  7)  which  he  comments 
upon  so  pointedly  in  the  Trieste  lecture,  and  to  the  hope  of 
regeneration  which  is  implicit  in  the  fall  and  in  the  figure  of 
Los  himself. 

88:9  That  regenerative  power  of  Los  Joyce  capitalizes 
upon  here  in  the  wonderful  portmanteau  word  *'morpho- 
melosophopancreates."  In  order,  this  incorporates  sleep  and 
Morpheus,  who  is  properly  the  fashioner  and  shaper  of 
dreams  (Greek  morphe,  plan,  shape);  morpheme,  the  shape 
of  a  meaningful  linguistic  unit;  melos,  a  combination  of  Los 
and  the  Greek  for  song  (cf.  57:2,  S33:iy);  sophos,  wisdom; 
Pan,  as  the  pagan  version  of  Blake's  rural  piper;  and  pan- 
creates,  which  in  Greek  means  literally  ''all  flesh"  and  en- 
compasses the  idea  of  the  creator  of  all  wisdom. 

140:i^-i8  The  tools  of  Los's  trade,  the  hammer  and  an- 
vil, Joyce  makes  use  of  next,  the  specific  reference  being  to 
the  forming  of  the  human  body,  forged  on  Los's  anvil,  de- 
scribed vividly  by  Blake  in  The  Book  of  Urizen,  especially 
Chapters  iva,  5,  and  ivb,  1,  2,  and  6.  At  the  same  time  Joyce 
has  also  incorporated  the  theme  of  destruction  (''destrac- 
tion")  into  the  context  of  Los's  creation.  For  other  references 
to  Los's  hammer  see  316:2^-26  and  356:i  (German  Fdustel). 

154:2^-26  Los  as  symbol  of  Time,  ultimately  related  to 
his  "emanation,"  Enitharmon,  who  is  Space,  is  inherent  in 
this  allusion  (for  Los  and  the  angels  again  see  also  296: 
16-iy).  Again  here  Joyce  demonstrates  his  intimate  knowl- 
edge and  clear  understanding  of  Blake's  works,  for  again  the 
allusion  is  to  Urizen  as  well  as  to  Los.  After  Los's  acts  of 
creation,  it  is  Urizen  who  rules  over  it  all,  taking  its  measure, 
binding  it  with  his  iron  laws,  estimating  its  capacity,  po- 
tential, and  value  for  his  own  ends.  Just  as  Los's  act  is  a 
selfless  one,  so  Urizen's  actions  are  selfish,  tyrannical.  Even 


Joyce  and  Blake  211 

Joyce's  references  to  a  two-dimensional  world  are  pertinent, 
for  in  the  Blakean  system  single  vision  (or  dimension)  is 
tantamount  to  blindness  (cf.  SliiG),  what  Blake  called 
"Newton's  sleep";  double  or  two-fold  vision  (or  dimension) 
is  of  this  world,  Los's  creation,  Urizen's  universe,  the  world 
of  London  (and  Joyce's  Dublin),  the  state  of  experience  or 
''Generation";  three-fold  vision  (or  dimension)  is  Beulah, 
Blake's  state  of  wise  innocence;  and  four-fold  vision  (or 
dimension)  is  Eden,  eternity,  oneness,  Jerusalem,  the  mil- 
lennium. Other  references  to  Los-Time  and  Enitharmon- 
Space  are  247:2,  42S:io-i2,  609:2-^. 

222:2^  Los  here  is  singer  as  well  as  protector  (cf.  the 
sword  of  the  Zoas  in  hue  22),  but  he  is  also  associated  prob- 
ably with  Christ  ("meekly")  and  more  simply  with  loose 
morals.  Thus  on  343:^i--^2  Christ  and  Shem  (and  hence 
Los)  are  accused  of  bruiting  forth  "lewdbrogue"  and  "re- 
ciping  his  cheap  cheateary  gospeds  to  sintry  and  santry  and 
sentry  and  suntry"  (Los  as  the  sun).^^ 

224:-^^  Joyce  here  nicely  combines  "With  a  Song  in  My 
Heart"  with  the  idea  of  restriction  to  which  Los-Blake  was 
constantly  opposed.  The  sense  of  the  passage  is  to  loosen  the 
bonds  on  art  and  hence  to  re-Los  (release)  it.  Cf.  323:31-32 
for  the  ideas  of  being  bound  by,  and  loose  or  free  from,  Los- 
time.  Other  brief  mentions  of  Los  as  singer  are  296:i6-i8 
(with  Nick  and  angels),  304:^i  (with  Jerusalem),  3S9:ig, 
S33:i6-ij  (with  Demelli,  the  original  name  of  Austrian 
composer  Franz  von  Suppe). 

241:2  J  8  These  two  contradictory  references  link  Los  first 
with  destruction  and  loss,  then  with  Blake  himself:  "loss- 
assinated"  and  "Collosul  rhodomantic."  The  latter  is  es- 
pecially interesting  since  it  evokes  the  image  of  a  colossal 
sun  or  Los  along  with  Cecil  Rhodes  and  the  Colossus  of 
Rhodes  (the  latter,  of  course,  a  statue  of  Apollo,  god  of  po- 
etry, music,  oracles,  associated  often  with  the  sun).  Taken 
with  181:^  and  492:5,  it  also  suggests  that  Joyce  was  thinking 
of  Blake  as  a  colossus  of  the  Romantic  Period. 


212  GLECKNER 

247:2--^  Los  and  Enitharmon  are  mentioned  here  ex- 
plicitly, and  for  the  first  time  associated  with  Swift  and  Nick 
(and  hence  Shem)  and  the  maker  of  literature.  Los  is  of 
course  the  time  maker  (in  the  world  of  Generation)  as  well 
as  the  ''timekiller"  (in  the  world  of  eternity  or  Regeneration), 
and  Enitharmon  is  the  ''spacemaker."  More  interesting,  how- 
ever, is  the  veiled  allusion  to  Swift  and  Los's  anvil  in  the 
same  phrase,  'Velos  ambos"  {velocey  swiftly,  a  French  musi- 
cal direction,  and  Amboss,  German  for  anvil ).22  Nick  of 
course  is  present  in  ''knychts"  (i.e.  nichts)  which  is  then 
both  creative  and  destructive.  Finally  Arabic  rubai  means 
composed  of  four  (like  Omar's  quatrains),  thus  evoking  here 
the  Four  Zoas  (four  knights)  and  their  epic  Blakean  ''tales 
within  wheels." 

318:33-35  An  especially  fascinating  passage  since  it  seems 
to  allude  to  Blake's  vision  of  Leviathan  emerging  as  ''a  fiery 
crest  above  the  waves"  in  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell; 
to  the  Blakean  idea  of  the  spectre  as  the  reasoning  power, 
the  dark  side  of  man;  and  to  the  sense  of  loss  (the  opposite 
of  Los)  at  such  a  birth.  The  Los  reference  is  strengthened 
by  the  more  positive  notions  inherent  in  the  ''irised"  sea 
(iris-rainbow,  and  perhaps  the  idea  of  Blake-Los  emerging 
triumphant  as  Irish  prophets)  and  in  the  word  ''nngnr," 
which  I  take  to  refer  obliquely  to  Nunn,  in  Egyptian  my- 
thology the  personification  of  the  germ  of  all  life  which  slept 
in  the  flood  until  creation,  as  Mrs.  Glasheen  notes.  Then  too, 
inherent  in  ''spectrum"  is  not  only  Blake's  spectre  but  also 
the  idea  of  vision  (Latin  spectrum). 

333 :i  Los  plus  King  Wenceslaus,  and  an  evocation  of 
Christ  and  Christmas  in  the  curious  Blakean  context  of 
wenching  (cf.  particularly  Blake's  The  Everlasting  Gospel 
for  his  view  of  the  adulterous  Mary).  Skeat,  whose  dictionary 
Joyce  used  constantly,  provides  the  key  here,  for  he  lists 
wenchely  as  used  in  the  Ormulum,  to  mean  a  male  child, 
Christ. 

341:2^-2^    Underneath   the   horse-race    jargon    and   the 


Joyce  and  Blake  213 

glance  at  Windsor  Palace,  we  have  also  Blake's  heliotrope 
("Ah!  Sun-Flower")  and  the  sun-Los-scope,  that  is,  Los's 
prophetic,  bardic  vision,  which  may  be  echoed  in  the  last 
phrase,  reminiscent  of  Blake's  idea  of  the  five  senses  being 
the  body's  gates  (here  the  gates  of  sight). 

357:21  In  the  context  of  hce's  comment  on  the  Russian 
General  story,  Joyce  pictures  him  sitting  in  the  outhouse 
thumbing  through  a  leaflet  (Joyce's  works,  as  well  as  Blake's, 
as  the  previous  page  makes  clear),  while  at  the  same  time  a 
vision  of  Blake-Los  emerges.  The  scene,  a  favorite  of  Joyce's 
(cf.  Bloom  in  the  outhouse  in  Ulysses) ,  is  consistently  re- 
lated in  Finnegan  to  Joyce's  and  Blake's  writings.  Part  of 
the  connection,  of  course,  is  in  Joyce's  alleged  crudeness  and 
pornography  but  the  rest  of  it,  I  believe,  stems  from  Joyce's 
probably  happy  discovery  of  Blake's  lyric,  ''When  Klopstock 
England  defied."  So  often  indeed  does  Joyce  evoke  the  figure 
of  Blake's  Nobodaddy  farting,  belching,  and  coughing 
"aloft,"  and  so  curiously  apt  for  the  crime  in  Phoenix  Park 
are  Blake's  lines  describing  himself  "giving  his  body  ease  /  At 
Lambeth  beneath  the  poplar  trees,"  that  surely  the  final  lines 
of  the  poem  would  stick  in  Joyce's  memory  too: 

H  Bhke  could  do  this  when  he  rose  up  from  shite 
What  might  he  not  do  ii  he  sat  down  to  wiite? 

Thus  in  the  present  passage  from  the  Wake  there  is  a  refer- 
ence to  Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence  ("idylly"),  to  the  turning 
of  his  bowels  in  the  Klopstock  poem  ("turmbing"),  to  Los 
and  Luvah,  one  of  the  Four  Zoas  ("loose  looves"),  to  The 
Book  of  Thel  and  "The  Lamb"  ("the  lamatory"),  which  is 
his  "thesis"  ("my  this  is").  The  concluding  hues  of  this  pas- 
sage {357:^1-^^)  may  also  echo  the  oft  repeated  stor}^  of 
Blake  and  his  wife  sitting  naked  in  their  garden  as  Adam  and 
Eve. 

376:i6-iy  Nick,  unbound  by  Time,  and  Los  are  joined 
here  by  Nefi  (a  seventeenth-century  poet  who  was  executed 


214  GLECKNER 

for  his  satiric  writings)  and  Justus  van  Effen  (Dutch  jour- 
nahst  who  translated  among  other  things  Swift's  Tale  of  a 
Tub  into  French). 

410:4-^  Translated  this  becomes  ''O  Los!  Alas!  O  loss!" 
A  solarium  {''oloss  olorium")  in  ancient  Rome  was  a  sun- 
dial or  clock,  and  "Olor"  of  course  refers  to  the  dying  swan 
and  his  song.  In  a  similar  passage  involving  swans  {S48:^^) 
Joyce  originally  rendered  the  word  "oloss"  as  ''olos/'  thus 
clinching  the  Los  reference.  See  also  547:8. 

422:6-8  A  vulgar  scurrilous  comment  by  Shaun  upon 
Shem  and  his  activities.  The  word  ''lowsense"  combines  Los's 
sense,  licence,  and  probably  nonsense;  ''cyphalos"  combines 
cipher,  phallus,  syphihs,  and  Los.  This  idea  of  the  produc- 
tion of  dirty  songs  is  followed  up  later  on  this  page  with  the 
famihar  reference  to  Los's  song,  ''Melosedible"  (line  26). 
Why  it  is  edible  I  don't  know. 

4S0:io-i2  An  interesting  combination  of  Sol,  Shelley, 
Benn,  and  Los.  The  sun  and  singing  (solfa)  leads  directly 
to  Shelley  and  Los  (buried  in  ''jealosomines"),  while  ''benu- 
volent"  evokes  Benn,  the  Egyptian  bird  thought  to  embody 
Ra  (the  sun),  plus  the  idea  of  flying  (Latin  volare).  Since 
Joyce  often  associates  Shelley  with  his  poem  *To  a  Skylark," 
the  several  Los  references  merge  neatly,  with  Los  as  poet, 
skylark,  sun,  and  singer. 

469:21-22  A  complex  passage  which  begins  with  the  fre- 
quent Joycean  idea  of  the  sohtary  singer  or  poet  standing 
against  the  world,  a  role  he  consciously  shared,  as  we  have 
seen,  with  Blake:  hence  ''So  Los  alone;  Los  goodbye"  (cf. 
496:13).  *'Erynnana"  refers  both  to  Erin,  and  to  Erinna  (a 
Greek  poetess,  friend  of  Sappho),  and  perhaps  also  to  the 
rann,  a  stanza  form  in  Irish  verse.  ''Singame"  I  take  as  a 
reference  to  J.  M.  Synge  as  well  as  of  course  to  the  literal 
notion  of  the  poet's  song.  And  the  passage  concludes,  after 
a  possible  nod  to  the  Four  Zoas  ("soarem"),  with  the  note 
of  aloneness  with  which  it  began  (Greek  erem,  solitary). 

471:8    "Estellos  and  venoussas"  involves  not  only  Stella, 


Joyce  and  Blake  215 

Vanessa,  and  the  stars,  but  also  the  polar  opposites  of  the 
beginning  (Los  as  creator)  and  the  end  (Greek  telos),  day 
(Venus  as  morning  star)  and  night  (Venus  as  evening  star). 

S80:i8  Los  and  "Time's  winged  chariot"  from  Marvell's 
''To  His  Coy  Mistress/'  all  in  a  Shemmian  context.  For  Mar- 
veil  and  Los  together  see  also  177 :i^. 

593:^2  Here  Los  appears  backwards  ("sowls"),  conform- 
ing to  the  usage  in  the  following  lines  of  ''Nuahs"  (Shaun), 
''Mehs"  (Shem),  and  'Tu  Nuseht"  (the  sun-up),  and  also 
to  signify  the  darkness  being  dispelled  by  the  light  of  a  new 
era  —  i.e.  a  new  Los  superseding  an  *'owld  sowl."  That  new 
"light"  of  course  is  Shaun-St.  Patrick,  who  represents  a  world 
inimical  to  Los's  world  of  the  Blake-Shem-Joyce-like  artist. 


IV 


Other  Blakean  characters  in  Finnegans  Wake  are  not  as 
consistent  in  their  context  nor  as  frequent  in  their  occur- 
rence as  Los.  Joyce  did,  however,  have  another  favorite,  Thel 
from  The  Book  of  Thel,  whom  he  seemed  to  think  of  in 
relation  to  "Leutha's  vale"  and  "Leutha's  flower"  (the  vale 
and  flower  of  sexual  experience)  in  Visions  of  the  Daughters 
of  Albion.  Briefly,  Thel,  despite  the  wise  teachings  of  a  lily, 
a  cloud,  a  clod  of  clay,  cannot  bring  herself  to  enter  the  grave 
of  experience  (the  world  of  sexual  experience  and,  generally, 
the  world  of  Blake's  London,  Joyce's  Dubhn),  and  instead 
retreats  to  a  kind  of  false,  hypocritical  innocence  in  the  vales 
of  Har.  This  false  "paradise"  is  presented  graphically  by 
Blake  in  Tiriel  in  his  bitter  parody  of  the  state  of  innocence 
in  which  aged  Har  and  Heva  dwell.  In  Visions  of  the  Daugh- 
ters of  Albion,  however,  Oothoon  (another  version  of  Thel) 
has  the  courage  to  move  beyond  innocence  into  the  world  of 
experience  by  plucking  Leutha's  flower.  Joyce  refers  to  all 
three  of  these  contexts  via  the  characters  Thel,  Har,  Heva, 


2l6  GLECKNER 

and  Leutha.  The  following,  then^  is  a  list  of  the  occurrences 
of  the  Thel  story  and  of  various  other  Blakean  characters  with 
some  suggestion  as  to  their  pertinence  to  the  Joycean  con- 
text: 

19:ig  Perhaps  an  allusion  to  The  Book  of  IJrizen,  ix,  ^-8, 
in  which  the  character  of  Fuzon  appears.  The  Book  of  Ahania 
chronicles  his  further  history. 

94:6-7  Hand  is  another  of  Blake's  great  villains,  whom 
Yeats  (in  Blake's  Works^  i,  383)  calls  "the  most  analytical, 
unimaginative,  destructive  of  all  the  personalities  that  make 
up  Albion,  the  Fallen  Man." 

113:^6  Blake's  Nobodaddy,  equatable  to  the  worst  of 
tyrants,  Jehovah,  the  conventional,  hypocritical  "God  of  this 
world,"  "nobody's  daddy."  He  is  referred  to  again  on  2S3:i6 
as  "Noodynaady's"  (perhaps  a  pun  on  the  Russian  for  tire- 
some). 

117:22  Blake's  Enion,  whom  Yeats  calls  "the  eternal 
maternal." 

173:1^  Albion,  Blake's  version  of  hce,  is  here  combined 
with  the  idea  of  warring  opposites  inherent  in  the  Mani- 
chaean  heresy  of  the  Albigenses.  Albion  is  referred  to  often 
in  Finnegans  Wake  as  might  be  expected,  especially  on 
343:9,  346:^,  483:22,  484:2^,  488:2^,489:^2,  and  611:8. 

188:20-2/f.  In  this  passage  Shaun's  self-righteous,  hypo- 
critical fear  for  his  own  loss  is  precisely  parallel  to  Thel's 
( "the  loss" )  fear  of  losing  her  crown,  her  beauty,  her  pleas- 
ant life  if  she  enters  the  terrible,  sinful  grave  of  experience  — 
that  is,  the  life  of  this  world.  The  horror  of  Thel's  grave-plot 
is  further  intensified  later  {4S0:^o)  by  reference  to  poisons 
of  various  kinds. 

314:32-33  Besides  the  two  references  to  Thel  by  name, 
this  entire  paragraph  may  be  a  vague  parody  of  Blake's  The 
Book  of  Thel,  especially  her  fear  of  the  "little  curtain  of  flesh 
on  the  bed  of  our  desire."  Cf.  422:28, 

3S3:2g-^o  "Hullulullu,  Bawlawayo"  is  not  a  character 
but  probably  Blake's  Bowlahoola,  a  dark  region  of  the  glut- 


Joyce  and  Blake  217 

tonous  senses,  associated  with  the  stomach  and  the  bowels. 
Joyce  also  refers  to  it  on  520:33  and  608:8-g. 

369:ig  Luvah,  one  of  Blake's  Four  Zoas,  is  fundamen- 
tally love,  which  relates  him  here  to  Samuel  Lover,  nine- 
teenth-century Irish  novelist,  songwriter,  and  painter,  born 
in  Dublin.  He  wrote,  among  other  things.  Handy  Andy,  to 
which  Joyce  often  refers  in  Finnegans  Wake.  Luvah  is  used 
again,  more  clearly,  on  357 :2i  and  385:2^. 

427:^2-1,^  For  Blake  the  spectre  is  the  blind,  visionless, 
reasoning  power  in  man,  the  contrary  of  the  poet-prophet. 
Hence  here  Joyce  properly  elevates  Shaun  as  the  *'spec- 
turesque"  spokesman  for  the  dark  side  of  Shem.  See  also 
299:5. 

447 :i^  A  phrase  reminiscent,  in  rhythm  and  content,  of 
Blake's  triune  tyrant,  father-priest-king  —  although  Shelley 
may  also  come  to  mind. 

4S9:i^-i^  'Ithiel"  in  Hebrew  means  ''God  is  with  me" 
(as  Thel  fervently  wishes)  and  ''athel"  is  Anglo-Saxon  for 
noble  (Thel  is  inordinately  proud  of  her  noble  bearing  as 
Queen  of  the  Vales  of  Har;  it  is  this  pride  in  self,  indeed, 
which  makes  her  unwilling  to  enter  the  grave  of  experi- 
ence). 

484:2g-^o  One  of  the  most  direct  references  to  The  Book 
of  Thel,  despite  the  fact  that  TheFs  name  is  split  between 
the  two  words  "the  leabhour."  For  Blake  Thel's  entering  the 
grave  means  her  entering  the  world  of  Generation,  which  is 
the  image  of,  and  the  road  to,  regeneration.  Since  leabhar  is 
the  Irish  word  for  book,  the  passage,  translated,  reads:  the 
Thel  book  of  my  (her)  generation.  Cf.  48S:^i  for  the  ''song" 
of  Thel. 

494:6  Ore  is  Blake's  fiery  spirit  of  revolt  (cf.  612:2), 
properly  associated  here  with  Bellona,  the  Roman  Goddess 
of  War.  At  the  same  time  Joyce  seems  to  allude  to  Ona,  the 
girl  lost  in  the  state  of  experience  ("A  Little  Girl  Lost")  and 
to  the  fallen  (or  lost)  Earth  in  the  "Introduction"  and 
"Earth's  Answer"  of  Songs  of  Experience.  Cf.  74:i-y. 


2l8  GLECKNER 

515:28  ''Bamboozelem"  is  a  corruption  of  Blake's  Edenic 
realm,  Jerusalem  and  Golgonooza,  the  city  of  Art. 

536:^^-^6  A  striking  reference  to  the  world  of  Har,  and 
of  Har's  tyrant  son  Tiriel,  a  world  of  Herod-like  tyranny 
over  nation  and  children  (''kinder")  alike,  a  world  in  which 
the  will  is  exerted  for  selfish  gain  and  comfort  (German 
wohl).  In  such  a  world  there  is  indeed  nothing  like  Leutha's 
vale,  in  which  the  golden  marigold  freely  gives  of  herself  in 
the  divine  knowledge  (and  vision)  that  ''the  soul  of  sweet 
delight  /  Can  never  pass  away"  (Visions  of  the  Daughters 
of  Albion).  The  sentence  carries  the  contrary  meaning  as 
well,  for  "leuther"  also  calls  up  the  figure  of  Luther,  whose 
own  brand  of  religious  tyranny  parallels  that  of  Har  and 
Herod.  For  Har  see  also  579:28,  and  for  Heva,  his  equally 
culpable  queen,  see  271:2^  and  494:26. 


V 


There  remains  one  other  category  of  Blakean  allusion  in 
Finnegans  Wake,  Blake's  works  by  quotation,  title,  and/or 
rhythmic  pattern.  This  last  of  course  is  the  most  problemati- 
cal of  the  three,  and  I  have  given  here  only  a  few  examples 
that  sound  right  to  my  ear;  but  with  Joyce's  good  ear,  his 
use  of  song  rhythms  and  lyrics,  and  his  mimicking  of 
limericks  and  nursery  rhymes,  we  should  not  be  surprised  to 
find  him  using  Blake's  poetry  in  the  same  way. 

15:22  An  echo  of  the  marigold's  invitation  to  Oothoon, 
in  Visions  of  the  Daughters  of  Albion,  to  pluck  her  flower. 

43:io  In  the  first  "Memorable  Fancy"  of  The  Marriage 
of  Heaven  and  Hell  Blake  is  delighted  with  his  vision  of  hell, 
which  to  others  is  "torment  and  insanity." 

43:2^-26  Joyce  has  in  mind  here  the  private  process  of 
"printing"  Blake  employed  for  his  works,  and  especially  the 
"heretical"  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  in  which  Blake  an- 
nounces  (i)  that  he  will  do  his  "printing  in  the  infernal 


Joyce  and  Blake  219 

method,  by  corrosives,  which  in  Hell  are  salutary  and  me- 
dicinal" (one  of  Joyce's  favorite  passages);  (2)  that  he  was 
once  ''in  a  Printing  house  in  Hell"  (the  third  ''Memorable 
Fancy");  and  (3)  that  he  has  written  "The  Bible  of  Hell, 
which  the  world  shall  have  whether  they  will  or  no"  (fifth 
"Memorable  Fancy").  But  Delville  was  also  the  home  of 
the  Delaneys  where  Swift  and  Stella  often  visited  (and  hence 
refers  to  their  "private"  language).  More  obviously  the  devil 
is  Blake's  (in  the  Marriage)  as  well  as  perhaps  Deville,  the 
phrenologist  who  made  a  life-mask  of  "the  real  Blake,"  a 
reproduction  of  which  Joyce  saw  as  the  frontispiece  of  E.  J. 
Ellis's  book,  The  Real  Blake.  Finally  the  "rimepress  of  Del- 
ville" is  reminiscent  of  Blake's  phrase,  "winepress  of  Luvah," 
glossed  by  Yeats  as  connected  with  the  human  heart,  the 
French  Revolution,  poetry,  and  ultimately  with  Christ. 

74:i-y  "He  skall  wake  from  earthsleep  ...  in  his  valle 
of  briers  of  Greenman's  Rise  O."  These  and  several  neigh- 
boring phrases  suggest  Blake's  "Introduction"  and  "Earth's 
Answer"  from  Songs  of  Experience,  "The  Little  Girl  Lost" 
(hues  ^s),  and  perhaps  "The  Garden  of  Love,"  though  the 
briar  imagery  has  its  ultimate  source  in  the  Bible.  Also 
74:g-ii  recalls  Blake's  "Laughing  Song"  (line  1). 

95:29-30  A  combination  of  Blake's  "The  Little  Boy 
Lost"  and  "The  Little  Boy  Found"  {Songs  of  Innocence) 
and  "The  Little  Girl  Lost"  and  "The  Little  Girl  Found" 
{Songs  of  Experience).  Another  of  the  songs,  "The  Eccho- 
ing  Green,"  is  alluded  to  in  line  ^6,  though  Joyce  may  also 
have  in  mind  the  "bud  and  blossom"  of  Blake's  poem 
"Night." 

96:i  Frances  Boldereff  (in  Reading  Finnegans  Wake) 
identifies  this  with  Mangan's  My  Dark  Rosaleen  and  the 
earlier  poem  "My  Little  Black  Rose";  but  Joyce  may  also  be 
alluding  to  Blake's  "The  Sick  Rose,"  for  the  next  line  refers 
to  a  companion  song  of  experience,  "Ah!  Sun-Flower."  Mrs. 
Boldereff  correctly  identifies  150:26  as  a  reference  to  Blake's 
"Mary"  (line  21). 

169:22-2^     In  Blake's  famous  letter  to  Thomas  Butts  (22 


220  GLECKNER 

November  1802)  a  thistle  on  his  path  has  words  with  him, 
and  he  outKnes  briefly  his  system  of  four-fold  vision.  Joyce's 
''garden  nursery"  suggests  Catherine  Blake's  father,  who  was 
a  nursery  gardener,  a  fact  E.  J.  Ellis  makes  much  of  in  The 
Real  Blake. 

17S:i  A  phrase  from  the  "Proverbs  of  Hell"  {The  Mar- 
riage  of  Heaven  and  Hell) :  ''As  the  air  to  a  bird  or  the  sea 
to  a  fish,  so  is  contempt  to  the  contemptible." 

229:26,  36  A  quotation  from  the  "Introduction"  to  Songs 
of  Innocence  (line  1^)  plus  Blake's  idea  of  innocence  gen- 
erally and  the  "inner,"  symbolic  sense  of  his  art. 

2S2:ii     Blake's  harlot  in  the  poem  "London." 

273 -.footnote  6  Probably  a  reference  to  Blake's  conception 
of  Mary  as  unchaste,  and  Christ's  birth  out  of  what  the  re- 
ligious call  "adultery."  For  example,  in  The  Everlasting 
Gospel  Blake  writes,  "Mary  fear  Not!  Let  me  see  /  The 
Seven  Devils  that  torment  thee";  "But  this,  O  Lord,  this  was 
my  Sin  /  When  first  I  let  these  Devils  in  /  In  dark  pretence 
to  Chastity";  and  "Just  such  a  one  as  Magdalen  /  With 
seven  devils  in  her  Pen." 

31S:^o-^i  At  the  end  of  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell  Blake  writes  of  a  "converted  Angel"  who  "is  now  be- 
come a  Devil,  is  my  particular  friend." 

387:^^  Blake's  famous  picture  of  a  naked  youth  rising 
in  the  sun,  until  recently  was  known  as  Glad  Day  (cf.  line 
36  here:  "The  new  world  presses").  Joyce  mentions  the  pic- 
ture again  on  470:1^. 

390:i6  and  391:6  A  double  reference  to  Blake's  "The 
Chimney  Sweeper,"  in  which  the  child  sold  into  sooty 
slavery  "Could  scarcely  cry  'weep!  'weep!  'weep!  'weep!"  but 
in  a  dream  freed  from  their  "coffins  of  black,"  all  the  sweep- 
ers "leaping,  laughing"  run  down  a  green  plain. 

470.7  Blake's  "Ah!  Sun-Flower,"  with  its  significance  re- 
versed to  fit  into  the  Shaunian  context  —  hence  a  midnight 
sunflower,  reflecting  the  famihar  Blake- white  pattern.  Simi- 
larly on  350:11  the  sunflower  is  "flawed."  See  also  S09:2i. 

476:2g--^i     Blake's  idea  of  man  being  closed  up  in  the 


Joyce  and  Blake  221 

cave  of  his  body,  with  only  "narrow  chinks"  through  which 
to  perceive  the  external  world.  This  severe  limitation  of 
vision  to  sense  perception  is  the  opposite  of  the  poet's  vision, 
or,  as  Joyce  puts  it  here,  such  bhndness  is  tantamount  to  the 
body's  censoring  the  soul's  vision.  On  this  point  see  espe- 
cially The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell  and  the  beginning 
of  Europe:  A  Prophecy. 

481:y-g  A  remarkable  passage,  which  would  take  too 
long  to  elucidate  here.  To  understand  its  wealth  of  allusion 
one  needs  to  consult  Blake's  ''A  Dream,"  "The  Little  Girl 
Lost"  and  "The  Little  Girl  Found,"  "A  Little  Girl  Lost," 
"Introduction"  to  Experience,  "Earth's  Answer,"  and  "Ah! 
Sun-Flower." 

S0S:i6-iy  This  whole  sentence  has  a  Blakean  ring  to  it, 
but  Joyce  again  has  in  mind  particularly  The  Marriage  of 
Heaven  and  Hell:  "No  bird  soars  too  high,  if  he  soars  with 
his  own  wings";  "When  thou  seest  an  Eagle,  thou  seest 
a  portion  of  Genius;  lift  up  thy  head!"  The  Marriage 
reference  continues  in  line  21  with  the  phrase  "steyne  of 
law,"  recalling  another  Proverb  of  Hell:  "Prisons  are  built 
with  stones  of  Law,  Brothels  with  bricks  of  religion."  Lines 
2^1.-2^  pick  up  the  idea  of  vision  (finite  and  infinite)  and 
Joyce  here  seems  to  mimic  Blake's  Proverbs  of  Hell  prose 
style  (I  find  no  particular  source  for  the  passage):  "Finight 
mens  midinfinite  true.  The  form  masculine.  The  gender 
feminine.  I  see."  ^^  And,  finally,  Joyce  concludes  with  a  ref- 
erence (line  30)  to  the  weeping  Daughters  of  Albion  in 
Blake's  Visions  of  the  Daughters  of  Albion. 

S49:g-i2  This  passage  may  be  a  parody  of  Blake's  more 
horrific  passages  in  the  prophetic  books,  especially  the  string 
of  resounding,  melodramatic  adjectives.  Joyce  has  done  this 
once  before  in  the  Wake  (356:30-36),  describing  and  imi- 
tating Blake's  prophetic  style  (as  well  as  describing  the  Wake 
itself).  See  also  409:28-29. 

576:14-16  Blake's  "A  Cradle  Song"  {Songs  of  Inno- 
cence), though  other  lullabies  may  also  come  to  mind. 

621:^o--^i     An  allusion  to  Blake's  child  of  innocence,  per- 


222  GLECKNER 

haps  more  particularly  the  frontispiece  of  Songs  of  Inno- 
cence, a  picture  of  the  piper  and  his  pipe,  and/or  the 
frontispiece  of  Songs  of  Experience,  which  shows  the  same 
figure  striding  away  from  the  flocks  of  innocence  (the 
'Veenywhite  steeds"?)  in  the  background  toward  experi- 
ence. That  state  of  experience  is  alluded  to  a  few  lines  later 
(lines  S4~3S)  via  phrases  which  echo  the  ''blackening  Church" 
and  ''Marriage  hearse"  of  Blake's  poem  "London."  Le  Fanu's 
The  House  by  the  Churchyard,  a  frequent  reference  in  the 
Wake,  is  here  also;  but  as  if  to  strengthen  the  Blake  allusion 
Joyce  in  line  36  evokes  Sterne  ("treestirm  shindy"),  with 
whom  he  associates  Blake  earlier  in  the  Wake. 


VI 


Allowing  for  error,  for  overreading  and  overeagerness,  one 
must  still  be  impressed  with  the  overwhelming  evidence  that 
Blake  was  seldom  out  of  Joyce's  thoughts  when  writing  Fin- 
negans  Wake.  On  the  simplest  level  these  manifold  allusions 
deepen  the  significance  of  separate  passages  and  widen  the 
scope  of  the  whole;  but  they  also  suggest  that  Joyce's  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  Blake's  life  and  the  Blake  canon,  and  his 
intense  sympathy  with  Blake's  vision,  were  controlling  ele- 
ments in  his  own  vast  undertaking.  As  Frances  Boldereff 
says,  "Blake  being  a  man  whom  he  [Joyce]  trusted  and  whom 
he  was  willing  to  accept  as  a  teacher,  from  whose  beliefs 
...  he  deviated  in  [no]  major  particular,"  represents  "Joyce's 
closest  alliance  to  another  human  being"  [Reading  Finne- 
gans  Wake,  p.  73).  I  am  not  sure  that  I  can  go  quite  this 
far  but  certainly  the  alliance  is  as  close  as  it  is  complex  and 
difficult  —  and  eminently  worthy  of  continued  study  and 
exploration. 


Joyce  and  Blake  223 

NOTES 

1.  A  translation  of  the  lecture  appears  in  The  Critical  Writ- 
ings of  James  Joyce,  ed.  Ellsworth  Mason  and  Richard  Ellmann 
(New  York,  1959).  For  the  Italian  original  see  Criticism,  i 
(1959),  182-89. 

2.  Hugh  Kenner,  'The  Portrait  in  Perspective,"  James  Joyce: 
Two  Decades  of  Criticismy  ed.  S.  Givens  (New  York,  1948), 
p.  142. 

3.  "Quest  and  Cycle  in  Finnegans  Wake/'  The  James  Joyce 
Review,  1  (1957),  39-47- 

4.  The  Works  of  William  Blake,  ed.  Ellis  and  Yeats  (Lon- 
don, 1893),  3  vols.;  Ellis,  The  Real  Blake  (London,  1907). 

5.  Cf.  Blake's  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  first 
"Memorable  Fancy." 

6.  In  his  Blake  lecture  Joyce  remarks  that  Blake  and  his 
brother  Robert  "recall  the  story  of  David  and  Jonathan,"  a 
relationship  used  often  in  the  Wake  and  frequently  associated 
with  Jonathan  Swift. 

7.  Fearful  Symmetry  (Princeton,  1947),  p.  44. 

8.  All  references  to  Finnegans  Wake  are  to  the  Viking  Press 
Edition  (1939)  by  page  and  line  numbers,  as  here. 

9.  I  am  indebted  here,  as  I  am  constantly  and  obviously 
throughout  this  paper,  to  A  Skeleton  Key  to  Finnegans  Wake 
by  Joseph   Campbell   and   Henry   M.    Robinson    (New   York, 

1944)- 

10.  See,  e.g..  The  Book  of  Urizen,  11,  7-8;  viii,  4. 

11.  The  Works  of  William  Blake,  i,  204. 

12.  For  "Edam"  (Edom)  and  the  reeking  see  also  plate  3  and 
the  fourth  "Memorable  Fancy"  of  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and 
Hell 

13.  See  The  Complete  Writings  of  William  Blake,  ed.  Geof- 
frey Keynes  (London,  New  York,  1957),  pp.  536-59. 

14.  185:34-186:2.  On  the  corrosive  etching  see  especially  the 
first  "Memorable  Fancy"  and  plate  14  of  The  Marriage  of 
Heaven  and  Hell.  For  the  "continuous  present  tense  integu- 
ment" applied  to  Blake,  see  the  passage  from  Joyce's  lecture 
quoted  above,  section  i. 


224  GLECKNER 

15.  See  The  Marriage  of  Heaven  and  Hell,  plate  14,  and 
Europe,  plate  iii.  On  the  basis  of  the  Blake  allusions  alone,  then, 
I  am  forced  to  disagree,  at  least  in  this  particular  context,  with 
Mrs.  Glasheen's  reversal  of  the  roles  of  Butt  and  Taff  {The 
Analyst,  xvii  [1959],  11-14).  Perhaps  the  solution  to  the  prob- 
lem (which  may  create  graver  problems  of  course)  is  that  Joyce 
used  the  two  names  ambiguously  at  times.  This  is  certainly  sug- 
gested by  the  eventual  merger  of  the  pair  into  Tuff  and  Batt. 

16.  For  the  more  severe,  bardic  Shem  (still  associated  with 
Blake's  reed  and  printing  ink),  see  433:8-9. 

17.  Joyce  seems  also  to  have  in  mind  here  Herrick's  poem,  "To 
the  Virgins,  to  Make  Much  of  Time,"  in  the  phrase  "gamut 
my  .  .  .  blackbudds."  Joyce's  description  of  Billy  Budd  on  page 
234  of  the  Wake  seems  to  identify  him  with  Shaun,  however. 
Still,  if  the  reference  here  on  page  450  is  to  Billy  Budd  he  is 
certainly  placed  in  the  context  of  Blakean  innocence,  pipers, 
buds,  and  blossoms. 

18.  The  allusion  in  the  last  phrase  is,  I  suspect,  to  Anna 
Letitia  Barbauld's  ("boybold")  saccharine  works  for  children, 
in  which  all  the  boys  are  chubby  little  loves  —  a  reflection  of 
Shaun's  own  sentimental  conventionality  as  well  as  a  contrast 
to  his  tyrannical  brutality.  For  other  possible  references  to  Mrs. 
Barbauld  see  169:4  (with  Blue  Beard)  and  207:8-9  (with  Anna 
Livia  and  Pavlova). 

19.  Joyce,  however,  says  (letter  to  Miss  Weaver,  16  Aug. 
1924)  that  St.  Patrick  is  Shem.  I  suppose  we  should  accept 
this,  but  in  terms  of  the  Blake  allusions  the  contrast  between 
St.  Patrick  and  Berkeley  is  a  sharp  one  —  and  clearly  Berkeley  is 
not  Shaun.  St.  Patrick  and  Ireland  are  as  identical  as  Paddy  and 
Irishman,  and  surely  the  new  dawn  is  not  idealistic  or  Blakean. 
Perhaps,  though,  because  it  is  new  light  (Blake's  Los)  dispel- 
ling darkness,  the  dawn  does  have  at  least  some  Shemmian  rays. 

20.  Part  of  the  problem  in  spotting  the  Zoas,  as  well  as  one 
of  the  keys  to  their  frequent  usage,  is  Joyce's  spelling.  He 
seldom  uses  the  awkward  "z"  sound,  so  that  his  reference  inheres 
in  such  phrases  as  "so  as,"  "so  and,"  "so  on,"  and  so  forth; 
or  in  any  number  of  words  subject  to  German  pronunciation, 
such  as  "soap,"  "soar,"  "soak,"  "zoo,"  "soever."  Our  major  check 
on  Joyce's  usage  is  his  relative  consistency  in  providing  a  four  of 


Joyce  and  Blake  225 

some  sort  in  the  Zoan  context  —  "four,"  "for,"  "fur,"  "far," 
"fear,"  "quad,"  etc.  Some  of  these  Zoan  contexts  are  4:28,  57:7, 
101:15,  152:1,  171:34-35,  180:6,  181:15,  200:13,  222:22, 
241:28,  250:28-29,  266:9,  301:14,  305:note  3,  310:18-20 
(with  Los,  his  hammer  and  anvil),  332:26,  349:4,  393:2-3  (with 
Christ),  405:35-36  (with  Blake),  407:18,  410:2,  415:23, 
425:22-23  (with  Shem  and  Blake),  469:22,  482:34,  505:17, 
517:30,  522:34-35  (if  one  did  psychoanalyze  oneself,  his  findings 
are  clearly  referable  to  the  over-all  significance  of  Blake's  Zoas ) , 
546:21,  552:15,  555:9,  560:28,  566:10,  597:12,  598:1-2,  601:2, 
611:14,  614:5,  615:11,  628:6. 

21.  Professor  Joseph  Prescott  has  pointed  out  to  me  that 
"cheateary  gospeds"  puns  on  the  Russian  words  for  "four  Gods" 
(hence  the  Four  Zoas?). 

22.  See  200:15  for  the  negative  of  this:  "so  umvolosy"  —  that 
is,  unswift  or  un-Swiftlike,  and  unlike  Los. 

23.  Such  mimicry  of  the  "Proverbs"  is  even  clearer  on 
527:22-23. 


11 
In  the  Wake  of  the  Fianna: 

SOME   ADDITIONS   AND   CORRECTIONS   TO   GLASHEEN 
AND   A   FOOTNOTE    OR   TWO   TO   ATHERTON 

VIVIAN     MERCIER 


I  N  offering  these  addenda  et  corrigenda  to  Adaline  Gla- 
sheen's  Census  of  Finnegans  Wake,  I  don't  want  to  belittle 
in  any  way  the  achievement  which  her  book  represents.  Even 
now  that  James  S.  Atherton's  The  Books  at  the  Wake  has 
appeared,  I  feel  that  the  Census  is,  for  me,  still  the  most 
useful  book  on  the  Wake.  Mrs.  Glasheen's  brief  ''Synopsis" 
is  valuable  because  it  keeps  the  total  picture  before  one  in 
the  minimum  of  space.  As  for  the  table  ''Who  Is  Who 
When  Everybody  Is  Somebody  Else,"  I  can  hardly  praise  it 
enough.  No  doubt  it  could  use  some  additions  and  correc- 
tions, but  it  dramatizes  the  multiple  levels  of  the  book  as 
no  other  method  of  presentation  could,  while  stimulating 
the  reader  to  fill  gaps  and  find  new  parallels  on  his  own. 
One  suggestion  I  would  make  is  that  room  should  be  found 
in  the  table  for  Oedipus  and  his  unhappy  family. 


VIVIAN  MERCIER  wds  boTu  iti  DubUn  and  returned  there  to  attend 
Trinity  College  for  nine  years;  his  boyhood  was  spent  elsewhere 
in  Ireland.  Now  an  Associate  Professor  of  English  at  The  City  Col- 
lege of  New  York,  he  has  taught  a  course  in  Joyce  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  California  (Berkeley).  His  book,  The  Irish  Comic  Tradition, 
which  contains  a  chapter  on  Joyce  and  Irish  parody,  is  due  to  be 
published  in  1962.  While  at  work  on  it  he  received  a  Ford  Fellow- 
ship and  an  acls  grant. 

226 


In  The  Wake  of  Fianna  227 

The  ''Census"  itself  will  certainly  remain  indispensable 
until  somebody  produces  for  Finnegans  Wake  the  equivalent 
of  Miles  Hanley's  Word  Index  to  ''Ulysses';  but  it  would 
be  altogether  unfair  to  regard  the  ''Census"  merely  as  an 
index,  for  it  contains  a  vast  number  of  accurate  identifica- 
tions, besides  giving  a  world  of  insight  into  the  treatment 
of  the  main  characters  and  themes.  An  article  like  the  present 
one  is  merely  the  frosting  on  the  cake  and  would  be  impos- 
sible to  write  were  there  not  already  a  rich,  substantial  cake 
to  frost.  Without  the  stimulus  and  guidance  of  Mrs.  Gla- 
sheen's  book,  I  would  never  have  found  the  energy  to  as- 
semble my  scattered  insights  here. 

Because  I  was  brought  up  in  Ireland  and  because  Irish 
literature  is  my  field,  most  of  my  comments  will  deal  with 
the  Irish  background  of  the  Wake.  It  is  amazing  how  much 
of  this  Mrs.  Glasheen  has  succeeded  in  tracking  down.  When 
I  read,  for  example,  her  entry  on  Fintan  Mac  Bochra,  I 
wonder  how  long  it  would  have  taken  me  to  discover  the 
information  it  contains  were  I  not  already  familiar  with  this 
legendary  figure  through  specialized  reading.  On  the  other 
hand,  perhaps  only  a  specialist  could  recognize  the  Irish 
sea  god  Manannan  Mac  Lir  in  "moananoaning"  (FW  628). 

The  Census  contains  relatively  few  errors  that  the  average 
Irishman  could  see  at  first  glance,  but  if  Mrs.  Glasheen  was 
reviewed  in  Ireland,  she  has  probably  heard  of  them  ad 
nauseam.  For  instance,  the  Liffey  becomes  tidal  at  Island- 
bridge,  but  it  does  not  empty  into  Dublin  Bay  for  miles  yet; 
the  Four  Courts  were  not  burned  in  the  Easter  Rebellion  of 
1916,  but  blown  up  during  the  Civil  War  in  1922;  Tom 
Kettle  was  killed  in  France  in  World  War  i  and  therefore 
could  not  have  helped  found  the  Irish  Free  State  years  later; 
Alfie  Byrne  may  well  have  been  a  friend  of  Joyce's  father,  but 
he  was  also  important  to  the  Wake  as  Lord  Mayor  of  Dubhn 
from  1930  through  part  of  1939. 

Omissions  present  quite  a  difl^erent  problem  from  errors: 
in  discussing  such  an  all-inclusive  book  as  the  Wake,  nobody 


228  MERCIER 

can  ever  hope  to  say  with  certainty  that  he  has  tracked  down 
everything  which  Joyce  intended  to  convey  in  even  a  single 
word.  Still,  there  are  certain  Irish  names  which  one  would 
expect  to  find  in  the  Wake  but  which  do  not  occur  in  the 
Census.  Let  me  give  a  few  examples,  some  obvious,  some 
not. 

James  Stephens,  the  Irish  poet,  whom  Joyce  had  selected 
to  finish  the  Wake  if  he  himself  died  or  became  incapaci- 
tated before  the  end,  would  surely  not  have  been  omitted, 
though  Mrs.  Glasheen  does  not  list  him  and  Mr.  Atherton 
thinks,  very  reasonably,  that  Joyce  has  adopted  his  person- 
ality as  another  facet  of  his  own:  after  all,  Joyce  and 
Stephens  were  born  on  the  same  day  and  shared  the  same 
first  name  and  profession.  However,  Stephens  does  appear 
in  a  list  of  Irish  writers  on  page  211:  ''for  Seumas,  thought 
little,  a  crown  he  feels  big."  Stephens  was  very  short  and 
''Seumas  Beg"  ("Little  James")  was  one  of  his  personae  in 
his  poetry:  in  1915  he  published  a  volume  entitled  The  Ad- 
ventures of  Seumas  Beg.  No  doubt  the  crown  he  felt  big 
was  the  doubtful  privilege  of  being  chosen  to  finish  the 
Wake,  though  perhaps  King  James  11,  who  lost  the  Battle 
of  the  Boyne,  is  also  being  referred  to.  Stephens,  incidentally, 
had  a  large,  domed  crown  to  his  head. 

Another  striking  omission,  if  it  occurred,  would  be  that 
of  Patrick  (Padraic)  Pearse,  the  real  leader  of  the  Easter 
Rebellion  and  thus  the  "father"  of  the  Irish  Republic.  But 
I  think  he  is  always  present  when  that  father-figure  Persse 
O'Reilly  is  mentioned,  usually  accompanied  by  The 
O'Rahilly,  who  was  killed  in  the  Rebellion.  At  any  rate, 
Pearse  occurs  twice  under  his  own  name,  in  "Yes,  pearse," 
{262)  and  "pearse  orations" (620);  Pearse  was  famous  in 
Ireland  as  an  orator  even  before  1916:  his  Political  Writings 
and  Speeches  should  be  listed  in  Atherton.  Incidentally, 
Persse  was  Lady  Gregory's  maiden  name;  I  haven't  yet  iden- 
tified her  satisfactorily  in  the  Wake,  but  she  must  be  there. 

Ulysses  often  suggests  names  that  might  occur  in   the 


In  The  Wake  of  Fianna  229 

Wake^  as  Mrs.  Glasheen  is  well  aware.  One  of  the  more 
recondite  is  that  of  Solam  O'Droma  ("Solomon  of  Droma/' 
U  — Modern  Library  Edition  — p.  331),  one  of  the  scribes 
of  the  Book  of  Ballymote;  I  believe  he  is  referred  to  in 
''Solman  Annadromus"  {FW  4S^)^  along  with  the  Salmon 
of  Knowledge  which  Finn  ate,  Fintan  in  his  incarnation  as 
a  salmon,  and  the  biblical  Solomon. 

Equally  recondite,  but  much  more  important  to  the  Wake, 
probably,  is  the  great  Irish  Neoplatonist  philosopher,  Greek 
scholar,  and  heretical  theologian,  John  Scotus  Eri(u)gena 
(830-880?),  who  is  referred  to  in  Ulysses  {^)  simply  as 
"Scotus,"  thus  leading  many  readers  to  mistake  him  for 
Duns  Scotus;  as  can  be  seen  on  page  160  of  the  Critical 
Writings,  Joyce  was  already  familiar  with  some  of  his  achieve- 
ments in  1907.  Mr.  Atherton  devotes  a  paragraph  to  him, 
saying  that  he  is  named  several  times  in  the  Wake  but 
quoting  only  "erigenating"  (4),  which  I  had  already  recog- 
nized. I  think  Mr.  Atherton  included  this  paragraph  as  an 
afterthought,  not  having  realized  that  Erigena's  De  Divisione 
Naturae  anticipates  Vico  and  reinforces  the  structure  of  the 
Wake  by  its  quadripartite  and  cyclical  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse. James  F.  Kenney  in  his  Sources  for  the  Early  History 
of  Ireland  (p.  ^84)  describes  this  work  as  a  philosophico- 
theological  discussion  of  "Nature,"  which  is  divided  into 
four  aspects,  one  being  the  Neoplatonic  "one"  —  God  as  the 
origin  of  all  things.  Note  that  the  Greek  for  "one"  becomes 
hen  when  transliterated;  I  am  sure  that  Platonism  or  Neo- 
platonism  in  general  is  the  source  of  "that  original  hen" 
{FW  110).  Since  Joyce  mentions  Erigena's  translation  of 
Dionysius,  the  pseudo-Areopagite,  in  Critical  Writings,  the 
two  references  to  "Dionysius"  in  the  Wake  {yo,  ^oy)  should 
be  reexamined,  though  the  second  refers  primarily  to  the 
god  Dionysus.  One  of  the  weak  points  of  Mr.  Atherton's 
book  is  his  neglect  of  the  whole  tradition  of  Neoplatonist 
philosophy,  which  obviously  appealed  to  Joyce. 


230  MERCIER 


II 


In  the  body  of  this  article  I  shall  be  trying  to  do  two  things 
at  once:  first,  to  solve  some  of  the  puzzles  concerning  things 
Irish  that  have  baffled  Mrs.  Glasheen;  second,  to  indicate 
the  kind  of  knowledge  needed  to  solve  them,  so  that  future 
commentators  need  have  less  trouble  with  similar  ones.  In 
spite  of  Andrew  Cass's  two  articles  (''Sprakin  Sea  Djoytsch," 
Irish  Times,  April  6,  1947;  ''Child  Horrid's  Pilgrimace," 
Envoy,  v  (1951),  19-30.),  the  first  of  which  is  the  more 
important,  American  scholars  still  fail  to  realize  how  much 
reference  to  the  Irish  scene  of  the  1930's  Finnegans  Wake 
contains.  We  must  remember  that  Joyce  read  the  Irish 
newspapers  assiduously;  also,  once  Ireland  had  a  radio  station, 
Radio  Athlone  (''Rowdiose  wodhalooing,"  FW  324),  power- 
ful enough  to  be  picked  up  in  France,  Joyce  seems  to  have 
spent  a  good  deal  of  time  listening  to  it.  The  ''tolvtubular 
.  .  .  daildialler"  (309)  is  blaring  away  all  through  the  pub 
scene  (309-82,  especially  ^2^-2^,  359-60),  and  radio  cliches 
occur  elsewhere:  "Sponsor  programme  and  close  down" 
(531);  stock  market  and  livestock  prices  (533);  news  head- 
hnes  {610);  "And  here  are  the  details"  {611),  a  favorite 
Radio  Athlone  expression. 

Andrew  Cass  has  dropped  broad  hints  that  1932  is  the 
"ideal  date"  of  the  Wake;  this  fifteen-hundredth  anniversary 
of  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick  was  a  kind  of  annus  mirabilis  for 
Ireland:  De  Valera  first  came  to  power  that  year  and  the 
International  Eucharistic  Congress  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  was  held  in  Dubhn,  a  Pontifical  High  Mass  being 
celebrated  before  a  congregation  of  one  million  in  the  Phoenix 
Park.  Also,  Joyce  and  De  Valera  both  reached  the  age  of 
fifty.  Later  in  the  year,  a  new  Governor-General  of  the  Irish 
Free  State  was  appointed;  he  was  destined  to  be  both  the  last 


In  The  Wake  of  Fianna  231 

and  the  lost  ("the  lost  Gabbarnaur-Jaggarnath/'  FW  ^/p), 
and  his  name  was  Buckley  ("Don  Gouvemeur  Buckley/' 
375).  Let  M.  J.  MacManus,  the  quasi-official  biographer  of 
Eamon  de  Valera,  explain  the  motives  for  his  appointment: 

De  Valera  .  .  .  appointed  .  .  .  Donal  [also  spelled 
Domhnall]  Ua  Buachalla  (Donald  Buckley),  a  Maynooth 
business  man,  and  one  of  the  few  Volunteer  leaders  who 
had  succeeded  in  bringing  his  men  from  the  country  to 
Dublin  in  Easter  Week.  Under  him  the  office  of  Governor- 
General  was  shorn  of  all  dignity  and  prestige.  He  attended 
no  public  functions  and  did  not  even  occupy  the  official 
residence.  In  his  place  de  Valera  himself  received  envoys 
from  foreign  countries.  The  office  was  degraded,  as  it  was 
intended  that  it  should  be  degraded,  and  when  the  new 
Constitution  came  in  1937  it  passed  out  of  existence. 

The  coincidence  of  Buckley,  Governor-General,  with  Joyce's 
father's  story  of  how  Buckley  shot  the  Russian  General  must 
have  delighted  Joyce;  I  haven't  worked  out  the  details  yet, 
but  I  think  it  follows  that  Buckley  and  the  Russian  General 
not  only  become  "one  and  the  same  person"  as  Butt  and 
Taff  do  {^S4)  ^^*  w^^^  o"^  ^"^  t^^  same  person  all  along. 

In  this  same  year  of  1932  and  for  many  years  thereafter, 
Sean  T.  O'Kelly  ("Shaunti  and  shaunti  and  shaunti  again," 
^08)  was  De  Valera's  Deputy  Premier,  Alfie  Byrne  was  Lord 
Mayor  of  Dublin,  and  Lorcan  Sherlock  ("Sherlook  is  lork- 
ing  for  him,"  ^^zf)  was  Sheriff.  Joyce  once  calls  Dubhn 
"Lorcansby"  (448),  not  merely  because  of  Sherlock,  how- 
ever: St.  Laurence  O'Toole,  the  patron  saint  of  Dublin,  bears 
in  Gaelic  his  rightful  name  of  Lorcan  Ua  Tuathail. 

More  than  one  commentator  on  Joyce  has  already  men- 
tioned the  "Dublin  Annals"  in  Thom's  Directory  of  Dublin, 
but  I  have  found  other  sections  of  my  1942  edition  of  this 
year  book  equally  useful.  The  alphabetical  "List  of  the 
Nobility,  Gentry,  Merchants,  and  Traders  in  the  City  of 
Dublin  and  Suburbs"  can  be  helpful  in  a  number  of  ways. 
For  instance,  a  passage  on  page  /^^  of  the  Wake,  "Peter  Pim 
and  Paul  Fry  and  then  EHiot  and,  O,  Atkinson,"  baffled  Mrs. 


232  MERCIER 

Glasheen.  I  recognized  Pirn  and  Atkinson  as  the  names  of 
two  well-known  firms  in  the  drapery  and  poplin  businesses, 
respectively;  with  the  help  of  Thom's  I  soon  discovered  that 
Thomas  ElHott  {sic)  and  Sons  are  a  firm  of  poplin  and  silk 
manufacturers  and  that  Fry  and  Co.  are  ''carriage  lace,  silk 
and  trimming  manufacturers."  In  the  same  long  sentence  as 
these  names  there  occur  the  words  'woollen/'  "pophn/' 
"tabinet,"  "lace,"  and  ''weaver's/'  so  I  think  my  identifica- 
tions are  correct. 

"Arnolff's"  (443)  is  Arnott's  department  store  on  Henry 
Street,  where  a  "flurewaltzer"  or  floorwalker  might  well  be 
employed.  I  think  the  word  also  contains  a  reference  to 
Arnolphe,  the  anxious  husband-to-be  in  Moliere's  U^cole  des 
femmes,  who  prefers  to  be  called  Monsieur  de  la  Souche 
because  St.  Arnulphus  or  Arnolphe  is  the  patron  saint  of 
cuckolds. 

"Varian"  is  a  name  given  Kate  the  Cleaner,  Mrs.  Glasheen 
knows,  but  she  does  not  know  why;  again  Thom's  will  help, 
for  I.  S.  Varian  &  Co.  are  a  firm  of  brush  manufacturers  in 
Dublin,  natural  associates  for  a  cleaning  woman.  The  "Mut- 
ther  Masons"  (223)  are  not  only  Freemasons  muttering  their 
rites  but  also  the  late  "Mother"  Mason's  hotel  and  restau- 
rant opposite  the  Gaiety  Theatre.  A  "Noblett's  surprize" 
(306)  is  both  a  Nobel  prize  and  a  gift  of  candy  from 
Noblett's  store,  as  the  phrase  "parent  who  offers  sweetmeats" 
indicates.  "Adams  and  Sons,  the  wouldpay  actionneers,"  {28) 
recall  James  Adam  and  Sons,  auctioneers.  Issy's  "coldcream 
.  .  .  from  Boileau's"  {^2y)  suggests  Boileau  &  Boyd,  an  old- 
established  Dublin  firm  of  wholesale  druggists.  One  could 
fill  an  entire  article  with  the  allusions  to  firms  whose  names 
are  "household  words"  in  Dublin. 

Again,  the  "Alphabetical  List  of  Streets"  and  "Dublin 
Street  Directory"  in  Thom's  sometimes  provide  useful  clues, 
and  not  merely  because  Joyce  mentions  so  many  of  Dublin's 
streets  sooner  or  later:  Many  of  the  streets,  naturally,  are 
named  after  historical  figures  or  have  historical  associations, 


In  The  Wake  of  Fianna  233 

like  those  in  any  other  city.  For  instance,  "foster's  place" 
(490)  recalls  Foster  Place,  but  'Tomm  Foster"  {S4^)  is  a 
reminder  that  Foster  Place  lies  next  to  the  former  Irish 
Parliament  House,  now  the  Bank  of  Ireland,  and  is  named 
after  John  Foster,  the  last  Speaker  of  the  Irish  House  of 
Commons.  Information  like  this  can  be  obtained  from 
C.  T.  M'Cready's  Dublin  Street  Names  Dated  and  Explained 
(Dubhn,  1892).  Another  useful  httle  book  is  Wilmot  Harris's 
Memorable  Dublin  Houses  (Dublin,  1890),  which  would 
have  explained  ''delville"  (503)  to  Mrs.  Glasheen.  Delville 
was  the  home  of  Swift's  friend  and  biographer.  Dr.  Patrick 
Delany.  "Cope  and  Bull  go  cup  and  ball"  (98)  may  again 
combine  topography  with  a  reference  to  Swift:  Cope  Street 
and  Bull-Alley  Street  still  exist  in  Dublin,  the  one  named 
after  Swift's  friend  Robert  Cope  and  the  other,  when  Bull 
Alley,  having  housed  one  or  more  of  Swift's  uncles.  Thom's 
Hsts  a  Coppinger's  Row,  which,  M'Cready  says,  was  named 
from  Robert  Copinger  or  Coppinger,  of  near-by  William 
Street,  who  was  buried  at  St.  Werburgh's  in  1715.  This  is  all 
the  hght  I  can  shed  on  the  mysterious  ''archdeacon  F.X. 
Preserved  Coppinger"  {^s)y  whom  Mrs.  Glasheen  very  ten- 
tatively identifies  with  Swift. 

Before  leaving  Dublin  topography,  I  must  mention  one 
list  of  proper  names  which  gave  Mrs.  Glasheen  understand- 
able difficulty:  ''the  Pardonell  of  Maynooth,  Fra  Teobaldo, 
Nielsen,  rare  admirable,  Jean  de  Porteleau,  Conall  Grete- 
cloke,  Guglielmus  Caulis  and  the  eiligh  ediculous  Passivu- 
cant"  isss)'  Many  Dubhners  would  hardly  need  the  hint 
contained  in  "statuesques"  to  recognize  some  of  the  city's 
principal  statues,  named  in  roughly  North-South  order.  The 
first  is  Parnell's,  jokingly  associated  with  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic seminary  of  Maynooth;  then  come  Father  Theobald 
Mathew's  statue  and  that  of  Admiral  Nelson  on  his  Pillar. 
"Jean  de  Porteleau"  refers  to  the  statue  of  Sir  John  Gray, 
Chairman  of  the  Waterworks  Committee,  who  was  knighted 
in  1865  for  his  services  in  bringing  the  pure  water  of  the 


234  MERCIER 

Vartry  to  Dublin:  see  "Dublin  Annals"  in  Thorn's.  Next 
comes  Daniel  O'ConnelFs  statue  with  its  great  cloak. 
"Guglielmus  Cadis"  (''Wilham  the  Cabbage")  is  the  statue 
of  William  Smith  O'Brien,  leader  of  the  ''rebellion  in  a 
cabbage  patch"  of  1848,  whose  statue  now  stands  to  the 
north  of  O'ConnelFs,  but  would  be  remembered  by  Joyce 
as  lying  to  the  south.  Finally,  "Passivucant"  seems  to  be 
Thomas  Moore's  statue,  standing  over  an  edicule  or  street 
lavatory  ("The  Meeting  of  the  Waters")  and  inviting  the 
citizen  to  pass  if  he  can't  pass  (water) . 

We  can  now  move  to  another  area  which  raises  difficulties: 
Joyce's  knowledge  of  the  Irish  language  and  Gaelic  literature. 
As  far  as  the  language  goes,  some  knowledge  of  its  pronun- 
ciation and  a  phrase-book  (Joyce  owned  Fourier  D'Albe's) 
are  about  all  one  needs.  For  instance,  "Kenny's  thought  ye, 
Dinny  Oozle!"  (332)  is  a  partly  phonetic  rendering  of  Conus 
td  tUj  a  dhuine  uasail,  Irish  for  "How  are  you,  sir."  Mrs. 
Glasheen  identifies  the  "Dinny  Oozle"  part  correctly.  Kenny 
is  such  a  common  Irish  name  that  it  is  hard  to  identify  it 
further.  Joyce  knew  the  names  of  some  of  the  colors  in  Irish, 
a  fact  which  helps  to  clear  up  the  series  of  seven  names  in 
note  4,  page  ijj:  "Roe,  Williams,  Bewey,  Greene,  Gorham, 
McEndicoth  and  Vyler."  These  are  the  colors  of  the  rain- 
bow once  again,  in  correct  order.  "Roe,"  "Bewey,"  "Gorham" 
are  Irish  ruadh,  huidhe,  gorm  —  red,  yellow,  blue.  "Williams" 
is  orange,  after  William  of  Orange;  "Greene"  is  green; 
"McEndicoth"  is  indigo  and  perhaps  also  J.  J.  McElligott, 
long  Secretary  of  the  Irish  Department  of  Finance,  whose 
signature  appears  on  many  Irish  banknotes;  "Vyler"  is  violet, 
to  complete  the  spectrum. 

On  page  26y  we  have  another  sequence  of  seven  or  "primi- 
tive SEPT,"  but  the  rainbow  is  no  help  here,  nor  is  a  knowl- 
edge of  Irish  the  only  clue  needed:  "Adamman,  Emhe, 
Issossianusheen  and  sometypes  Yggely  ogs  Weib.  Uwayoei!" 
If  one  gives  "mh"  its  Gaelic  pronunciations  as  "v,"  Adam 
and  Eve  are  easily  recognized,  with  a  reference  to  St. 
Adamnan  and  perhaps  to  Emher,  wife  of  Cuchulain.  Since 


In  The  Wake  of  Fianna  235 

Irish  is  with  an  unvoiced  "s"  means  either  ''is"  or  ''and," 
we  have  several  choices  for  "Issossianusheen";  taking  it  as 
EngKsh,  we  can  get  "Is  Ossian  Usheen?"  —  to  which  the 
answer  is  "yes."  Ossian,  Usheen,  Oisin,  are  all  acceptable 
versions  of  the  name  of  Finn's  poet  son.  As  for  "Yggely  ogs 
Weib,"  if  we  take  "ogs"  as  a  phonetic  rendering  of  Irish 
aguSj  also  meaning  "and,"  we  can  recognize  "W  and  Y." 
As  "Uwayoei"  hints,  what  we  have  is  a  list  of  the  vowels  and 
semivowels  of  traditional  English  grammar:  A,  E,  I,  O,  U, 
and  sometimes  W  and  Y.  With  fiendish  ingenuity  Joyce 
makes  the  word  for  "W"  begin  with  "Y"  and  the  word  for 
"Y"  with  "W."  Perhaps  the  Earwicker  family  and  their  two 
servants  are  being  named.  None  of  this  clarifies  Issy's  foot- 
note to  "Adamman":  "Only  for  he's  fathering  law  I  could 
skewer  that  old  one  and  slosh  her  out."  This,  I  think,  brings 
us  to  Early  Irish  literature,  for  I  see  it  as  a  reference  to  the 
Cain  Adamndin  (Adamndns  Law)  which  forbade  military 
service  to  women  and  laid  down  heavy  penalties  for  the  kill- 
ing of  women. 

If  I  have  explained  Issy's  footnote  correctly,  Joyce  must 
have  read  more  Gaelic  literature  in  translation  than  Mr. 
Atherton  suspects.  Professor  Daniel  Binchy  of  the  Dublin 
Institute  for  Advanced  Studies  has  suggested  in  a  lecture 
that  Joyce  knew  George  Calder's  translation  of  Auraicept  na 
n-l^ces  {The  Scholars'  Primer)  from  the  text  in  the  Book 
of  Ballymote.  Here  Joyce  could  have  read  of  Fenius  Farsaidh, 
who  brought  the  Irish  language  from  the  Tower  of  Babel; 
is  Fenius  alluded  to  in  "Finnius"  {61^)  or  "pharce  .  .  . 
phoenish"  (4)?  Is  "Kennealey"  {yi)  Cennfaeladh,  the  sup- 
posed author  of  The  Scholars*  Primer,  or  is  he  Edward 
Vaughan  Kenealy,  the  Irish  versifier  and  counsel  for  the 
Tichborne  Claimant,  who  in  his  old  age  turned  to  a  pseudo- 
philological  exegesis  of  the  Apocalypse  which  is  crazier  than 
any  parody  of  scholarship  in  the  Wake?  I  wish  Professor 
Binchy  would  publish  something  on  Joyce's  knowledge  of 
Early  Irish  law,  literature  and  learning. 

I  hardly  know  how  to  describe  the  last  kind  of  Irish  knowl- 


236  MERCIER 

edge  I  am  going  to  mention:  perhaps  ''folk  lore"  or  "nursery 
lore"  would  be  a  suitable  term.  Take  for  example  this  pas- 
sage on  page  180:  ''Cardinal  Lindundarri  and  Cardinal 
Carchingarri  and  Cardinal  Loriotuli  and  Cardinal  Occi- 
dentaccia."  Although  Mrs.  Glasheen  identifies  these  prelates 
correctly  as  the  Four,  and  therefore  "Carchingarri"  must  be 
Mark  Lyons,  she  places  an  asterisk  against  this  name,  mean- 
ing that  she  cannot  identify  it  further.  Now,  this  is  no  more 
than  "Cork  and  Kerry"  oddly  spelled;  these  are  two  counties 
of  the  province  of  Munster,  always  represented  by  Mark. 
Clearly  Mrs.  Glasheen  has  never  heard  the  riddle  which 
many  Irish  children  know: 

Londonderry,  Cork  and  Kerry, 
Spell  me  that  without  a  "K." 

The  answer  is  "t-h-a-t,  that,"  of  course.  Notice  that  Joyce 
has  spelled  "Cork  and  Kerry"  without  a  "K"!  The  four 
Cardinals  here  represent  both  the  four  "cardinal"  points  of 
the  compass  and  the  four  Irish  provinces:  Londonderry  is 
in  Ulster;  "Loriotuli"  is  our  old  friend  St.  Laurence  O'Toole 
again,  standing  for  Dublin  in  the  province  of  Leinster; 
"Occidentaccia"  is  Ireland's  western  province,  Connaught. 


Ill 


Besides  many  other  Irish  items,  I  have  a  number  of  iden- 
tifications in  my  notes  which  cannot  by  any  stretch  of  the 
imagination  be  described  as  Irish.  The  chief  point  which  a 
random  listing  of  them  would  make  is  that  almost  any  sort 
of  knowledge  will  help  in  annotating  the  Wake.  To  do  the 
job  properly,  one  would  have  to  know  everything,  not  be- 
cause Joyce  did,  but  in  order  to  discover  the  limits  bounding 
his  and  his  friends'  researches,  some  of  which  are  recherches 


In  The  Wake  of  Fianna  237 

indeed.  John  H.  Thompson  once  told  me  he  had  120,000  file 
cards  on  the  Wake. 

For  one  thing,  a  commentator  needs  some  knowledge  of 
philology,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  pseudo-philology:  enough 
of  something,  anyway,  that  will  enable  him  to  see  that 
"Yokeoff  .  .  .  Yokan"  (531)  are  Jacobus  and  Johannes, 
James  and  John,  Shem  and  Shaun,  once  again.  Or  to  see  that 
"Will,  Conn  .  .  .  Otto"  and  "Vol  .  .  .  Pov  .  .  .  Dev" 
{^1 )  are  both  "will,  can,  ought  to,"  whatever  else  they  may 
refer  to. 

A  knowledge  of  English  history  can  help  a  great  deal:  Mrs. 
Glasheen  knows  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  began  life  as 
Arthur  Wellesley,  but  she  seems  to  be  unaware  of  another 
English  general.  Sir  Garnet  Wolseley,  whose  name,  along 
with  Cardinal  Wolsey's  and  Judge  Woolsey's,  get  involved 
with  Wellesley's  in,  for  example,  "woolselywellesly"  (52). 
Another  figure  from  nineteenth-century  English  history  is 
Charles  Dilke,  who,  like  Charles  Parnell,  had  his  political 
career  ruined  by  a  divorce  case.  He  is  "Jarley  Jilke"  {61 )  and 
probably  "Dilke"  (90). 

I  don't  know  whether  the  famous  urinating  statue  of 
Brussels,  the  Manneken  piSy  belongs  in  a  census,  but  he  is 
certainly  in  the  Wake  {ly^  ^8,  334).  So  are  the  Reuters  and 
Havas  news  agencies,  as  "Rooters  and  Havers"  {421).  So  is 
London's  Wallace  Collection  of  art,  as  "wallat's  collectium" 
(153),  with  overtones  of  "wallet." 

Sometimes  one  is  looking  so  obstinately  for  a  particular 
identification  that  he  completely  misses  another.  This  has 
happened  to  me  so  often  that  I  wept  for  Mrs.  Glasheen  in 
her  vain  attempt  to  identify  "Una  Bellina"  with  a  heroine 
of  The  Faerie  Queene;  the  passage  is  "Hal  Kilbride  v  Una 
BelHna"  {SJ^)^  although  she  placed  "Hal"  quite  correctly  as 
Henry  viii,  she  apparently  could  not  see  the  reference  to 
Anne  Boleyn. 

On  the  other  hand,  sometimes  a  reference  looks  too  easy 
to  be  true:  that  there  are  three  soldiers  does  not  prove  that 


238  MERCIER 

Kipling's  Soldiers  Three  is  a  source.  When  the  Three  are 
referred  to  as  ''Oxthevious,  Lapidous  and  Malthouse  An- 
themy"  {^yi)^  they  do  have  the  same  initials  as  Kipling's 
Ortheris,  Learoyd  and  Mulvaney,  but  is  this  enough?  Is 
"Orther"  (sio)  a  reference  to  Ortheris  as  well  as  'order" 
and  all  the  Arthurs?  I  simply  don't  know. 

Finally,  there  is  one  gift  which  Mrs.  Glasheen  and  all 
Joyceans  will  agree  with  me  in  calling  essential  to  any  com- 
mentator on  the  Wake  —  luck!  For  example,  when  trying  to 
identify  "yateman"  {22^)^  which  I  hoped  was  a  reference  to 
one  of  the  authors  of  1066  and  All  That  as  well  as  to  jede- 
mann  (''everyman"),  I  came  across  the  following  book  title 
in  the  New  York  Public  Library  catalogue:  The  Shemetic 
[sic]  Origin  of  the  Nations  of  Western  Europe  and  More 
Especially  of  the  English,  French  and  Irish  Branches  of  the 
Gaelic  Race,  by  John  Pym  Yeatman  (London,  1879).  I 
would  have  to  read  this  obviously  preposterous  book  to  dis- 
cover whether  Joyce  in  fact  used  it,  but  even  to  know  of  it 
makes  me  feel  lucky.  If  John  Pym  Yeatman  is  not  men- 
tioned in  Finnegans  Wake,  he  certainly  deserves  to  be. 

NOTE 

The  title  of  this  article  translates  a  Gaelic  phrase  implying 
the  loneliness  of  Ossian,  the  only  survivor  of  Finn  and  his 
warriors,  or,  sometimes,  as  here,  one  who  lags  behind  after  the 
great  have  passed  on. 


12 

Circling  the  Square: 

A   STUDY   OF    STRUCTURE 

RUTH     VON     PHUL 


J  O  Y  C  E'  S  propensity  for  design  is  spectacularly  demon- 
strated by  the  'Tlan"  of  Ulysses.  But  those  careful  categories, 
although  they  outline  thematic  patterns  of  the  texture,  are 
hardly  elements  of  structure  in  a  strict  use  of  the  word: 
structure  as  the  basic  formal  organization  that  both  shapes 
the  whole  and  governs  the  interrelations  of  the  parts.  A  truly 
structural  plan  would  dictate  the  total  form  and  control  more 
firmly  the  order  and  relationship  of  its  components;  the 
"Plan"  resembles  an  interior  decorator's  scheme  rather  than 
an  architect's  blueprint. 

Whatever  the  internal  structure  of  Ulysses  as  an  independ- 
ent entity,  however,  the  book  is  a  major  structural  element  of 
a  larger  whole,  a  tetralogy  comprising  the  Portrait,  Ulysses, 
Exiles  and  Finnegans  Wake.  The  structure  of  the  last  book 
recapitulates  the  total  design,  and  throughout  Finnegans 
Wake  the  structure  is  reproduced  in  every  gradation  of  scale. 
It  reappears  epitomized  in  a  phrase,  it  is  repeated  in  passages 
many  pages  long,  and  it  governs  the  internal  form  and  or- 
ganization of  the  main  divisions  of  the  book.  Under  the 

RUTH  VON  PHUL,  a  housewife  and  a  grandmother,  has  published 
extensively  on  Joyce's  Wake  in  The  James  Joyce  Review,  earlier 
miscellanies,  and  elsewhere.  Now  living  in  Europe,  Mrs.  Von 
Phul  has  completed  a  study  of  Joyce  to  be  called  The  Individual 
Passion. 

239 


240  VON    PHUL 

dense  texture  other  designs  may  have  been  imposed  on  the 
first,  single,  rather  simple  form  which  concerns  us  here. 
The  form  is  clear  enough  once  we  recognize  its  presence,  and 
since  it  comprehends  the  tetralogy  we  may  regard  it  as  the 
figure  in  Joyce's  carpet.  We  can  best  assure  ourselves  that  it 
exists  by  analyzing  Finnegans  Wake. 

As  everyone  knows,  Finnegans  Wake  has  four  major  parts 
and  is  circular,  since  the  incomplete  final  sentence  serves  as 
the  beginning  of  the  sentence  that  opens  the  book.  The 
tetralogy  has  the  same  cyclic  motion,  for  the  last  page  of 
Finnegans  Wake  links  architectonically  with  the  first  of  the 
Portrait.  We  cannot  take  hterally  Joyce's  remark  that  Fin- 
negans Wake,  being  circular,  unlike  Ulysses  has  neither 
beginning  nor  end  and  may  be  read  in  any  order.  At  certain 
levels  this  is  simply  not  true.  The  dream  of  Finnegans  Wake 
conforms  in  many  ways  to  real  dreams  which  lack  a  true 
chronology  yet  have  a  sort  of  timetable  of  their  own.  Al- 
though this  dream  embraces  the  cosmos  and  reaches  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  temporal,  it  takes  place  in  a  single  night 
that  wears  away  toward  dawn  like  any  other.  The  dreamer, 
Jerry  Earwicker,  sleeps  during  his  father's  wake.  In  the 
earlier  parts  of  the  book  we  hear  tinkling  glasses  raised  in 
jovial  celebration  of  the  folk  rite  belowstairs;  as  the  hours 
pass,  these  sounds  are  succeeded  by  the  rattle  of  the  day's 
first  tram,  by  cockcrows,  and  an  early  broadcast  foretelling 
the  weather  of  the  dawning  day,  while  into  the  hungry 
sleeper's  dream  creep  allusions  to  breakfast.  Like  everything 
else  in  the  book  these  realistic  details  carry  a  full  symbolic 
cargo,  but  they  are  concrete  indications  of  actual  clock  time 
as  well. 

The  numerous  allusions  to  Vico  should  not  beguile  us 
into  yet  one  more  fruitless  attempt  to  impose  a  four-part 
Viconian  cycle.  This  is  an  older,  more  familar  cycle,  the 
immemorial,  ever-new  round  of  birth,  marriage,  death  and 
rebirth.  We  cannot  always  delimit  the  stages  precisely,  for 
life  is  a  continuum,  not  a  series  of  disconnected  episodes, 


Circling  the  Square  241 

and  in  each  stage  the  seeds  of  the  future  are  germinating.  Nor 
can  we  apply  the  labels  with  rigorous  literalness.  Birth  com- 
prises heredity,  early  environment  and  nurture  —  it  connotes 
preparation  for  life.  Marriage  too  has  a  comprehensive  sig- 
nificance; it  denotes  the  period  of  creativity  and  connotes  a 
certain  participation  in  the  whole  society.  When  a  youth 
becomes  a  man  he  incurs  as  the  price  of  his  creativity  a  two- 
fold obligation  to  carry  on  the  work  of  creation,  through  his 
work  and  by  establishing  a  new  family.  As  paterfamilias  and 
as  worker,  he  must  relate  himself  to  other  human  beings. 
Death  likewise  must  be  liberally  interpreted.  There  are  more 
deaths  than  mere  stoppage  of  breath:  inertia,  impotence, 
materialism,  all  are  types  of  death. 

In  Joyce's  most  penetrating  epiphanic  illuminations  he 
always  sees  that  the  things  above  are  as  the  things  below. 
For  Joyce  nothing  was  too  abstract  or  too  holy  to  allegorize 
in  terms  of  his  own  self  and  his  own  life.  These  are  the  often 
very  earthy  foundations  that  support  his  topless  towers  as 
they  soar  toward  the  sky.  Allegorical,  anagogical  and  aesthetic 
exigencies  sometimes  compel  him  to  adjust  objective  fact, 
but  these  tamperings  are  minor  and  touch  only  accidentals. 
They  do  not  detract  from  but  enrich  the  poetic  truth  of  the 
long  autobiography  that  depicts  faithfully  enough  the  ac- 
tualities of  his  world  and  treats  its  spiritual  and  emotional 
realities  with  the  utmost  veracity.  Sometimes  lucidly,  more 
often  obliquely,  he  sets  forth  his  life  as  it  seemed  to  him. 
This  highly  subjective  autobiography  is  the  formal  determi- 
nant of  the  tetralogy. 

Since  by  definition  the  four-part  cycle  is  the  paradigm  of 
all  lives  it  may  seem  an  exercise  in  futility  to  demonstrate 
how  Joyce's  life  conforms  to  the  universal  norm.  And  so  it 
would  be  if  that  were  the  end  in  view.  We  must  synopsize 
his  life  story  and  recognize  its  various  stages  to  discern  its 
structural  function.  Moreover,  the  transmuted  autobiography 
was  virtually  suspended  with  Exiles  and  the  beginning  of 
Joyce's  fourth  decade.  It  is  retold  in  Fimiegans  Wake  and 


242  VON    PHUL 

brought  up  to  date  but  the  new  material,  hke  the  refurbished 
famihar  tale,  is  set  down  in  hieroglyphics.  The  "actual"  life 
and  the  fictional  account  —  projected  by  some  bold  guesses 
—  are  the  legible  inscriptions  of  the  Rosetta  stone  that  will 
enable  us  to  decipher  the  final  revelations. 

The  synoptic  biography  that  follows  is  admittedly  syn- 
thetic; it  combines  facts  of  Joyce's  actual  life  with  subjective 
data  from  the  life  stories  of  his  fictional  selves:  Stephen 
Dedalus,  Richard  Rowan,  and  others.  As  historical  method 
this  is  absurd,  but  taken  as  literary  research  into  literary 
sources  it  is  an  enterprise  of  impeccable  orthodoxy.  Any 
singularity  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  chief  sources  of  Joyce's 
last  work  must  be  sought  in  his  earlier  books,  and  in  his  hfe. 

The  hfe  story  falls  into  six  phases  which,  when  we  come 
to  fit  them  into  the  four-part  cycle,  will  group  themselves  in 
more  than  one  way. 

Childhood:  birth  to  puberty.  The  child  is  an  obedient, 
docile  son  and  pupil.  He  practices  his  religion  as  a  matter  of 
habit  with  no  more  emotion  and  little  more  thought  than 
he  gives  to  tying  his  shoes.  The  Oedipus  complex  has  its 
inception  in  infancy  and  then  becomes  latent,  but  from  the 
age  of  six  the  child  is  cloudily  aware  of  sex.  He  is  learning 
other  things:  that  the  quarrelsome  Irish  invariably  betray 
their  saviors;  that  words  are  magical;  that  the  Church  has 
reprehensible  spokesmen:  the  formidable  Dante,  the  brutal, 
unjust  Father  Dolan.  The  phase  is  reflected  in  'The  Sisters," 
"An  Encounter,"  "Araby,"  and  the  first  eighty  pages  of  the 
Portrait.  The  voyage  to  Cork  in  the  Portrait  is  the  rite  of 
passage  to  the  next  phase. 

Puberty:  In  Cork  the  boy  steps  into  his  father's  world. 
Here  he  recognizes  his  father's  weaknesses,  and  seeing 
"Foetus"  carved  on  a  desk  in  his  father's  old  school,  is  shaken 
by  a  tumult  of  sexual  feeling  and  shame:  He  has  entered  the 
arena  where,  as  in  infancy,  he  will  be  his  father's  rival.  In 


Circling  the  Square  243 

this  period,  Freud  says,  the  Oedipus  complex  emerges  from 
latency.  Sexual  and  religious  conflicts  tear  the  boy.  He  is 
captivated,  although  hardly  enslaved,  by  a  *  nice"  girl;  like 
her  predecessor  Eileen,  she  is  the  type  of  maiden  he  is 
doomed  to  woo  in  vain.  Such  girls,  in  his  mother's  pattern, 
do  not  return  his  affection,  much  less  requite  it  with  the  free 
surrender  of  body  and  soul  which  he  longs  for.  Intolerable 
craving  drives  him  to  whores,  to  dreams  of  yielding  love 
goddesses  and  to  masturbation,  a  symbol  of  the  sterile  nar- 
cissism of  introversion  and  withdrawal.^  In  his  intellectual 
positions,  puerile  though  they  may  be,  the  youth  is  increas- 
ingly isolated.  This  phase  is  shown  in  Stephen  Hero  and  the 
Portrait.  At  the  end  of  the  latter,  Stephen  is  alienated  from 
his  world;  saying  a  perfunctory  "so  be  it"  to  his  mother's 
prayer  that  he  may  learn  what  the  heart  is  and  feels  —  i.e. 
caritas  —  the  young  escapist  is  poised  for  his  Icarian  flight  to 
"life"  and  Paris. 

Adolescence  (the  word  is  used  here  to  indicate  only  the 
final  phase  preceding  manhood):  The  Paris  sojourn  com- 
bined physical  malnutrition  (which  Joyce  later  blamed  as  an 
antecedent  cause  of  his  blindness)  with  mental  forced  feed- 
ing. Like  many  another  tripper  Stephen  returned  home  un- 
appeased  yet  gorged  and  bilious.  But  somatic  or  psychic,  the 
maladies  incubated  in  Paris  are  not  the  cause  of  Stephen's 
plight  after  his  mother's  death.  All  his  dissipation  with 
cronies  cannot  mask  his  total  alienation  nor  the  apathy  that 
adds  acedia  to  the  other  mortal  sins  he  so  joylessly  commits. 
Remorse  and  grief  are  exacerbated  by  an  Oedipal  neurosis 
which  now  manifests  itself  in  a  classically  Freudian  syn- 
drome: anxiety  terrorizes  him  and  paralyzes  his  will  in  vac- 
illating indecision,  while  the  scales  of  bisexuality  tip  toward 
overt  homosexuality.  Before  noon  on  that  fateful  June  16th 
Stephen  makes  one  attempt  to  cut  the  umbilical  cord  that 
shackles  him  to  a  ghost.  Leaving  the  Martello  tower  he  leaves 
the  "Omphalos"  and  turns  from  the  perilous  path  of  inver- 


244  VON    PHUL 

sion.  But  only  after  Ulysses  closes  will  Stephen  discover  that 
his  complex  is  resolved  and  that,  initiated  into  manhood,  he 
is  free  —  to  love,  to  practise  his  art.  Joyce  shows  clearly  that 
Bloom  is  savior  and  liberator,  but  only  hints  that  he  will  not 
be  unaided  in  exorcising  the  baneful  spell.  He  leads  Stephen 
into  manhood  and  back  to  mankind,  and,  almost  as  impor- 
tant for  the  nascent  artist,  opens  his  eyes  to  a  new  vision  of 
the  phenomenal  world  he  has  disdained.  But  Molly,  who 
plans  to  garnish  her  spare  room  —  Calypso's  cave  —  for  the 
eagerly  awaited  guest,  will  offer  him  more  than  cocoa  to 
break  his  emotional  fast.  She  will  bring  him  eggs,  the  very 
symbol  of  new  life,  and  by  her  joyous,  undemanding  gift 
of  her  body  this  somewhat  maternal  love  goddess  will  be  the 
bridge  over  which  Stephen  can  carry  his  reawakened  power 
to  love  from  his  dead  mother  to  the  still  unknown  beloved. 
Both  characters  may  be  chiefly  fictional  (although  Molly  is 
certainly  in  part  Nora  Barnacle  as  Bloom  is  partly  Joyce 
himself)  but  they  live  in  truth.  They  are  Joyce's  supreme 
creations,  incarnate  vessels  of  the  spirit  that  breathed  new 
life  into  him  in  midsummer  of  1904. 

Young  Manhood:  For  a  decade  —  1904  to  1914  —  Joyce 
seems  to  have  struggled  to  achieve  emotional  equilibrium  as 
a  man  while  he  labored  to  perfect  himself  as  an  artist.  He 
had  resumed  close  personal  relationships,  but  they  were 
stormy.  His  brother  Stanislaus  was  (Frank  Budgen  excepted) 
his  most  trustworthy  friend,  the  confidant  who  best  under- 
stood him,  yet  Joyce  irritably  condescended  to  him  while 
exploiting  him  mercilessly.  All  bonds  chafed  Joyce,  and  his 
emotional  dependence  on  Nora  seems  to  have  been  almost 
intolerably  galling;  this  combined  with  his  inveterate  dis- 
trust of  women  and  his  distrust  of  himself  —  as  man,  never 
as  artist  —  to  make  him  vulnerable  to  a  recurrent,  lacerating 
jealousy.  Richard  Rowan's  tawdry  infidehties  and  gratuitous, 
agonizing  confessions  to  Bertha  are  probably  based  on  fact. 
Ostensibly  Rowan's  compulsion  to  confess  —  so  like  Joyce's 
—  serves  his  masochism,  but  it  is  the  scourge  with  which  he 


Circling  the  Square  245 

sadistically  flagellates  Bertha,  who  is  without  question  mod- 
eled on  Nora.  In  spite  of  squalor,  quarrels  and  drunkenness, 
Joyce  in  this  decade,  drudging  at  teaching  and  writing  only 
in  his  spare  time,  was  truly  creative.  He  begot  children  and 
he  created  art,  though  the  work  of  the  period  —  several 
Dubliners  tales.  Exiles  (not  completed  until  the  next  phase) 
and  the  Portrait  —  is  not  yet  equal  to  what  he  would  achieve. 
The  period  is  reflected  in  "A  Little  Cloud,"  "The  Dead," 
perhaps  in  some  details  of  the  Blooms'  early  married  life, 
and  Exiles.  Writing  the  play  seems  to  have  been  an  unex- 
pected compulsion  that  delayed  completion  of  the  Portrait 
and  the  long  anticipated  start  of  the  work  on  Ulysses.  We 
may  well  deprecate  this  unsuccessful  closet  drama,^  but  it 
seems  to  have  made  possible  the  serene  affirmations  of  Ulys- 
ses; Joyce  appears  to  have  purged  himself  in  Exiles  of  bile 
that  embittered  his  relationship  with  Nora.  The  play  is  set 
in  Dublin  in  1912;  the  situation  is  in  part  identical  with  the 
Joyces',  whose  return  to  Ireland  in  that  year  may  have  inten- 
sified, and  eventually  resolved,  certain  tensions  between  them. 
The  causes  appear  to  have  been  jealousies  old  and  new;  dead 
lovers  and  fiving  suitors  were  potential  rivals  but  so,  we  may 
surmise,  was  Ireland,  always  alluring,  always  treacherous.  Ap- 
parently Joyce  resented  Nora's  embarrassment  in  coming 
home  as  his  wife  only  by  courtesy;  possibly  he  suspected  her 
of  a  reluctance  to  return  to  exile.  To  regularize  her  status  by 
marriage,  to  conform  and  remain  in  Ireland,  would  be  for 
Joyce  impossible  concessions,  but  to  refuse  them  could  only 
fan  his  ever  smouldering  guilt,  against  which,  as  always,  he 
would  shield  himself  in  a  martyr's  robe.  If  some  such  emo- 
tional crisis  existed,  it  coincided  with  the  destruction  of 
DublinerSy  a  disaster  that  gave  focus  to  Joyce's  chronic,  free- 
floating  expectation  of  treachery  and  rationalized  his  eternal 
sense  of  martyrdom. 

Maturity:  From  approximately  1914  to  1921,  Joyce  fully 
mastered  his  art.  Exiles  is  no  testimony  to  his  ripeness;  it  is 
a  bit  of  left-over  business,  green  fruit  of  emotion  recollected 


246  VON    PHUL 

not  in  tranquillity  and  set  down  prematurely.  But  Ulysses 
is  a  masterpiece,  as  he  himself  knew.  Finnegans  Wake  shows 
him  as  Solness,  fearful  he  cannot  again  scale  the  pinnacle 
he  conquered  in  his  prime.  His  portrayal  of  Bloom,  his  affec- 
tionate depiction  of  Molly,  and  —  perhaps  more  significant 
—  the  compassion  he  exhibits  toward  all  the  other  women 
in  Ulysses  suggest  he  had  reached  a  sunny  upland,  an  era  of 
good  feeling  toward  human  beings,  even  those  of  the  opposite 
sex.  With  Nora  he  perhaps  felt  an  old-shoe  easiness,  for  in 
these  years  he  yearned  rather  absurdly  for  two  unattainable 
younger  women.  These  fruitless  hankerings  seem  less  a  throw- 
back to  his  mooncalf  days  than  a  premature  onset  of  the 
Schwaermerei  of  impotent  senility.  These  girls  lend  attributes 
to  such  diverse  images  of  sterile  frustration  as  Gerty  Mac- 
Dowell,  Martha  Clifford,  and  Beatrice  Justice  of  Exiles;  the 
Stella  and  Vanessa  of  Finnegans  Wake  also  derive  from 
them.  Bloom's  sexual  predicament  perhaps  resembles  Joyce's. 
But  otherwise,  except  for  a  few  of  the  Pomes  Fenyeach,  this 
period  is  for  the  most  part  an  interim  of  silence  that,  like  the 
entire  phase  to  follow,  is  not  reflected  in  Joyce's  work  until 
Finnegans  Wake. 

Decline:  The  publication  of  Ulysses  brought  full  recog- 
nition and  fame  to  Joyce  at  forty,  after  twenty  years  as  a 
writer.  The  book  was  controversial,  but  fortissimo  paeans 
from  fellow  artists,  from  critics  and  the  reading  public,  al- 
most drowned  out  the  discords  of  dissent.  Yet  Joyce's  ears 
were  hypersensitive  to  Irish  voices,  and  out  of  Ireland  arose 
a  cacophony  of  dispraise  and  gasps  of  jealous  incredulity  from 
the  old  Dublin  circle  who  understood  nothing  in  the  book 
but  the  most  obvious  local  allusions  and,  of  course,  the 
obscenity.  As  bewildering  as  the  work  itself  was  its  reception; 
how  could  their  old  crony's  unintelligible  scribblings  (chari- 
tably deplored  as  the  ravings  of  insanity  or  grinned  at  as  a 
practised  japer's  gigantic  hoax)  ^  so  take  in  the  rest  of  the 
English  reading  world?  But  without  question,  Joyce  had  ar- 


Circling  the  Square  247 

rived,  and  a  few  well-wishers  were  distressed  by  his  enthusias- 
tic acting  of  the  role  of  arriviste.  He  became  something  of 
a  dandy  and  spent  much  time  and  too  much  money  in 
restaurants  de  luxe,  with  a  drunken  seaman's  disregard  for 
his  actual  means;  Ulysses^  banned  in  England  and  the  United 
States,  was  not  the  bonanza  he  thought  it.  This  was  a  natural 
reaction  from  the  long,  lean  years;  it  may  also  have  been  a  bit 
of  ostentatious  nose-thumbing  toward  Dublin,  conspicuous 
consumption  to  impress  an  insular  coterie  with  the  well-being 
of  the  prodigal  son  and  the  chic  of  his  "companion."  But 
the  son  was  still  far  from  home,  although  after  years  in  the 
wilderness  he  had  conquered  the  intellectuals'  promised  land 
and  for  literate  sightseers  in  Paris  was  himself  a  three-starred 
object  of  interest.  He  was  a  prophet  honored  only  in  exile, 
and  the  fine  sauces  of  the  fleshpots  could  not  disguise  the 
flavor  of  husks.  Finnegans  Wake  reveals  much  self-criticism 
of  the  excesses  of  the  period,  and  a  disquieted  awareness  that 
though  effete  luxury  is  a  cliche,  it  is  truth  that  creates  a 
truism. 

At  many  points  Finnegans  Wake  discloses  a  bitter  resent- 
ment of  women:  They  are  mercenary,  and  worse,  they  are 
venally  treacherous.  This  seems  to  reflect  Joyce's  feehngs 
midway  through  the  writing.  Both  in  anticipation  and  retro- 
spect the  marriage  ceremony  undertaken  in  1931  was  appar- 
ently a  source  of  rancor;  to  substitute  a  golden  fetter  for  the 
impalpable  bond  of  the  long  union  seemed  betrayal.  A  few 
months  after  the  marriage  Harriet  Weaver  thought  Joyce 
notably  irritable;  two  years  afterward  Frank  Budgen  was  sur- 
prised to  hear  Joyce  for  the  first  time  speak  bitterly  of  women, 
decrying  their  dominating  invasiveness  and  disavowing  any 
further  interest  in  their  bodies.  Another  grievance  that  began 
to  rankle  much  earher  is  also  suggested  in  Finnegans  Wake: 
Woman  is  self-pityingly  nostalgic,  always  repining  for  a  lost 
lover  who  is  an  embodiment  of  the  ardor  her  mate  no  longer 
manifests.  Like  Bertha  in  Exiles,  she  laments  always  the 
"strange,  wild  lover"  to  whom  she  gave  herself  in  youth. 


248  VON    PHUL 

"What  is  the  time?"  is  a  dreadfully  important  question  in 
Finnegans  Wake.  Every  calendar,  every  clock,  reminds  a  man 
in  the  declining  years  that  his  days  are  numbered  but  eter- 
nity is  endless.  He  cannot  disregard  the  memento  m.ori 
offered  him  by  bodily  aches,  much  less  the  pangs  of  spiritual 
malaise.  In  the  'Twenties  Jung  was  the  latest  of  the  age-old 
succession  of  mentors  who  admonish  that  in  the  latter  half 
of  life  a  man  must  re-examine  himself  and  his  values,  rec- 
oncile his  conflicts,  discover  the  meaning  of  life,  fix  his 
relationship  with  the  cosmos.  Joyce  had  spent  his  adult  hfe 
doing  just  this,  but  now  there  is  a  sense  of  urgency.  More- 
over, many  allusions  suggest  concern  lest  his  inveterate  retro- 
spection, his  habitual  preemption  of  the  protagonist's  role 
(and  his  predilection  for  doubling  in  the  subsidiary  parts 
too)  might  dry  up  the  wells  of  inspiration  and  leave  him 
epicene  like  the  Four  Old  Men,  garrulously  ''rememboring" 
their  pasts.  But  his  daimon  would  not  let  him  rest  until  the 
grand  design  was  complete,  nor  were  his  goals  aesthetic  only. 
He  sought  to  set  his  spiritual  house  in  order  by  an  ultimate 
and  mature  examen  of  conscience.  Since  the  technique  re- 
quired retrospection  and  introspection,  the  very  scalpels  and 
probes  of  dynamic  psychology,  perhaps  the  process  might 
prove  therapeutic  and  repair,  if  it  could  not  renovate,  the 
psyche's  fleshly  abode. 

Jung's  description  of  types  must  have  struck  home  to  Joyce. 
The  arrogant  "godlike"  intellectual  is  young  Stephen  exactly, 
but  (unlike  Joyce's  more  recondite  borrowings  from  Freud) 
nothing  in  Stephen's  introvert  posturings  are  beyond  what 
the  artist's  own  perspicacity  might  have  shown  him.  But 
Finnegans  Wake  suggests  that  Joyce  heeded  Jung's  warning 
to  the  man  who  has  achieved  prestige:  the  threat  of  regressive 
dissolution  in  the  collective  psyche  as  it  represses  the  true 
individuality  in  "sociality"  and  adherence  to  community 
standards.  Joyce,  rebel  against  Irish  norms,  seems  aghast  at 
his  conformity  to  the  antithetical  but  also  stultifying  stand- 
ards of  Paris.  Seeking  to  make  reparation  to  the  abused 


Circling  the  Square  249 

psyche,  the  ignored  Anima,  the  dreamer  can  never  disguise 
from  himself  the  pristine  significance  of  these  terms,  nor 
from  what  "art"  the  psychologists  had  borrowed  them. 

Thus  in  this  last  phase  the  dreamer  sees  himself  as  a  dead 
soul,  or  moribund  in  physical  and  artistic  effeteness.  Yet 
while  he  breathes  he  must  struggle  on,  hoping  for  rebirth. 
To  accept  this  as  ''death"  makes  it  child's  play  to  group  the 
earlier  phases.  The  phases  from  childhood  through  adoles- 
cence are  the  stage  of  preparation:  ''Birth."  Young  Manhood 
and  Maturity,  the  period  of  fruitfulness,  are  "Marriage."  To 
use  "Marriage"  as  a  label  merely  for  sexual  expression,  ignor- 
ing the  creative  connotations,  we  must  either  blur  the  hne 
just  drawn  between  "Birth"  and  "Marriage"  or  set  it  back 
to  encompass  the  sexuaHty  of  puberty  and  adolescence.  But 
the  puerile  experiments,  sterile  and  diffuse,  are  only  love  play, 
a  rehearsal  before  the  rite  of  passage  to  manhood.  Joyce 
himself,  however,  often  breaks  through  the  demarcation  at 
the  other  side  of  "Marriage,"  where  it  is  contiguous  with 
death.  For  to  him  woman  is  always  equivocal,  a  divinity  of 
death  as  well  as  of  love,  birth  and  rebirth.  Her  dirges  modu- 
late into  lullabies,  but  any  epithalamium  is  a  Liebestod.  The 
domesticated  Muse  becomes  a  hen,  the  nymph  a  crone.  He 
who  thinks  he  has  conquered  the  goddess  finds  himself  vic- 
tim, not  victor;  he  has  incurred  the  penalties  suffered  by 
Oedipus,  Osiris  or  Adonis:  blindness,  castration,  dismember- 
ment, death. 

This  grouping  of  the  life  phases  necessarily  omits  "Re- 
birth." Joyce  seems  to  have  hoped  that  the  publication  of 
Finnegans  Wake,  nearly  twenty  years  after  Ulysses,  would 
prove  him  as  indestructible  and  dazzling  as  a  phoenix. 
Whether  he  believed  in  the  survival  of  personahty  is  unclear, 
but  he  seems  never  to  have  lost  faith  in  some  form  of  resur- 
rection, perhaps  a  sort  of  metempsychosis  in  which  he  would 
return  not  in  his  proper  personality  but  as  a  type:  the  hero- 
artist-martyr.  So  he  would  be  subsumed  in  artists  yet  unborn 
like  Shakespeare  in  the  young  Stephen.  Yet  there  are  reasons 


250  VON    PHUL 

to  think  that,  if  he  did  not  expect,  he  hoped  for  personal  sur- 
vival, and  desperately  feared  extinction,  if  not  eternal  tor- 
ment. 

But  Joyce's  wheels  always  contain  other  wheels.  Re- 
examined, the  cycle  proves  to  be  dual,  comprising  one  com- 
plete cycle  and  three  parts  of  the  next.  In  this  grouping, 
childhood,  when  heredity  and  environment  mold  the  still 
plastic  boy,  is  *'Birth."  Puberty  and  early  adolescence,  in 
which  the  youth  first  experiences  sex  and  first  essays  creative 
writing,  are  a  feeble  paradigm  of  ''Marriage."  But  the  adoles- 
cent, fallen  Icarus  is  a  walking  corpse;  Stephen  in  Ulysses 
is  Joyce  in  the  first  ''Death"  stage.  Hence  the  plan  of  Ulysses 
assigns  no  organs  to  the  "Telemachiad,"  the  three  sections 
that  are  peculiarly  Stephen's;  what  need  has  a  cadaver  of 
organs?  In  early  manhood  he  is  reborn,  although  his  resur- 
rection came  between  the  acts,  or  books,  as  it  were.  This 
"Rebirth"  is  a  stage  of  gestation  leading  to  "Birth"  in  a  new 
cycle.  Joyce  has  learned  to  say  "yes"  to  life,  but  as  man  and 
artist  he  is  still  nascent;  the  conflicts  with  his  brother  and 
with  Nora,  his  struggles  to  write,  are  the  birthpangs  he 
suffers  now.  In  "Maturity,"  Joyce  is  in  the  second  "Marriage" 
stage,  having  reached  a  summit  of  his  art  and,  presumably, 
enjoying  halcyon  days  emotionally.  The  "Death"  period  of 
the  second  minor  cycle  of  course  coincides  with  that  of  the 
larger  one  when  Joyce  and  his  dreamer,  latest  of  all  his 
surrogates,  confront  death  in  its  grimmest,  most  literal  sig- 
nificance. The  reduplicated  life  cycle  explains  the  bicycle 
trope  that  recurs  throughout  Finnegans  Wake. 

To  study  the  structural  use  of  the  life  cycle  in  Finnegans 
Wake  we  can  most  conveniently  begin  with  Book  iii,  which 
Joyce  called  "The  Four  Watches  of  Shaun."  He  explicated 
it  as  "a  description  of  a  postman  travelling  backward  in  the 
night  through  the  events  already  narrated.  It  is  written  in 
the  form  of  a  via  crucis  of  14  stations"  (L  21/^).'^  The  events 
are  those  of  Joyce's  life,  touched  on  allusively  and  cryptically 
in  the  first  two  books  of  Finnegans  Wake  and  related  clearly 


Circling  the  Square  251 

enough,  if  not  completely,  in  the  earlier  works  of  the  te- 
tralogy. It  seems  paradoxical  that  to  Shem,  his  acknowledged 
surrogate,  Joyce  devoted  only  one  of  seventeen  sections  while 
Shaun,  his  antithesis,  is  the  protagonist  of  a  whole  book  of 
four  sections.  The  paradox  resolves  itself  as  we  study  the 
vigils  of  Shaun  and  discover  that  once  more  the  wily  Joyce 
has  misdirected  those  to  whom  he  offered  guidance. 

Shaun  the  Post  combines  the  antagonists  and  foils  of  all 
Joyce's  books,  and  their  originals,  brought  up  to  date.  He  is 
Maurice  Dedalus  and  Cranly,  Mulligan  and  Robert  Hand, 
but  he  is  far  more.  He  is  the  bosom  enemy,  the  inner  adver- 
sary, the  alter  ego  whom  the  dreamer  repudiates,  again  and 
again,  as  he  struggles  to  realize  his  true  —  or  chosen  —  Ego. 
Once  more  Joyce  shows  us  his  possible  selves,  the  Joyces  who 
might  have  been  if  he  had  followed  other  paths.  The  choices 
made  along  the  way  were  not  easy;  his  antitheses  turned  their 
steps  toward  inviting  vistas  that  often  tempted  Joyce.  But 
each  time  the  choice  was  made  the  ''other"  and  the  self 
parted  company.  Via  crucis  is  a  pun  that  plays  on  these  part- 
ings of  the  ways.  It  is  the  road  on  which  the  perpetual  martyr, 
Shem-Joyce,  struggled  to  the  consummation  of  his  ''cruel- 
fiction"  {FW  192);  it  shows  us  the  crucial  choices  he  made 
on  the  way  to  becoming  a  man  and  an  artist. 

At  many  points  the  text  shows  us  the  via  crucis  is  a  way 
of  crossroads.  In  his  working  notes  Joyce  designated  char- 
acters and  themes  of  the  book  by  a  sort  of  shorthand.  Shaun's 
sing  is  A,^  a  lambda  that  diagrammatically  represents  the 
postman's  sturdy  legs.  This  lambda  is  included  among  the 
signs  for  the  "Doodles  Family"  (FW  299),  which  also  in- 
cludes X,  a  St.  Andrew's  cross,  but  that  sign  of  martyrdom 
is  described  in  an  apparent  gloss  as  "a  multiplication  mark- 
ing for  crossroads  ahead"  {FW  119).  Various  allusions 
equate  Shaun  with  gods  of  the  crossroads,  Mercur)',  or 
Hermes  with  his  votive  pillars  (cf.  the  postman's  pillar 
boxes)  at  the  crossroads.  Joyce  remarked  that  iii  4  must 
"be  about  roads,  all  about  dawn  and  roads"  (L  2p).  Yet 


252  VON    PHUL 

few  such  allusions  appear  in  the  section,  which  is  chiefly  set 
in  the  stuffy  indoor  atmosphere  of  the  family's  bedchambers; 
when  twice  we  glimpse  the  outdoors  it  is  to  see  the  Con- 
stable at  a  standstill,  not  patrolling  the  roads.  Yet  in  this 
section  Shem  and  Shaun  are  children  in  the  dawn  of  life, 
and  the  parents'  bed  where  they  were  begotten  and  born  is 
the  carrefour  (''carryfour,"  FW  ^81)  whence  all  their  roads 
set  out.  The  bed  is  also  the  point  of  departure  for  a  way  of 
the  cross  in  the  religious  sense,  for  the  parents  are  Adam  and 
Eve,  reenacting  the  felix  culpa  that  is  the  first  step  to  Cal- 
vary and  redemption.  And  here  the  child  Jerry-Shem,  gazing 
on  his  father's  nakedness,  is  Ham,  a  figure  for  Adam;  with 
his  brother,  witnessing  the  parents'  intercourse,  he  com- 
pounds the  unfilial  offense.  In  Freud's  earlier  writings  he 
insisted  that  such  infantile  voyeurism  was  an  inevitable  and 
weighty  factor  in  Oedipal  neuroses.  Whether  it  is  merely  a 
figure  for  workaday  cruxes  to  be  traversed,  or  interpreted  re- 
ligiously or  psychologically,  the  child  sets  forth  from  the 
womb  on  a  via  crucis. 

Let  us  consider  the  regressive  journey  of  Shaun  in  the  order 
in  which  Joyce  presents  it. 

Ill  1:  The  time  is  contemporary;  the  dreamer,  Jerry-Shem, 
is  the  illustrious  author  of  Ulysses,  with  Finnegans  Wake  as 
his  dreamwork  in  progress.  He  beholds  Shaun  the  Post  who 
carries  in  his  bag  a  letter  that  is  Joyce's  work.  The  Postman, 
a  mock  messiah,  has  assumed  the  Christ  role  that  Stephen 
Dedalus  once  took  on  himself.  He  complains  of  fatigue,  but 
seems  strikingly  euphoric  and  prosperous;  he  is  extraordi- 
narily dressy  for  a  letter  carrier,  and  regales  himself  with  an 
almost  uninterrupted  succession  of  tremendous  meat  meals. 
Both  here  and  in  the  following  section  he  constantly  runs 
the  gamut.  Shaun  does  not  recognize  his  ''celebrAted" 
brother  {FW  ^21)  in  the  dreamer  who  humbly  asks  if  the 
Postman  can  read  the  letter  he  carries.  Shaun's  reply  reveals 
his  jealousy  of  the  author's  renown,  and  his  baffled  chagrin 


Circling  the  Square  253 

that  such  obscene  trash  should  be  so  praised.  The  work,  he 
says,  was  partly  his,  and  if  he  chose  he  could  write  as  well 
He  recites  the  fable  of  the  Gracehoper  and  the  Ondt;  he 
himself  is  the  thrifty  Ondt,  having  piled  up  treasures  both 
on  earth  and  in  a  Mohammedan  paradise.  In  a  little  after- 
song  he  acknowledges  that  the  antithetical  insects  are  neces- 
sary complements,  but  at  the  end  of  the  section,  he  violently 
denounces  Shem  and  takes  off,  apparently  for  America. 

Here  ''the  voce  of  Shaun,  vote  of  the  Irish"  {FW  ^oy) 
speaks  for  Joyce's  Irish  critics.  (The  "voice  of  the  Irish," 
heard  in  a  dream,  summoned  St.  Patrick  back  to  Ireland.) 
Shaun,  admittedly  modeled  in  part  on  John  McCormack, 
represents  a  Joyce  who  might  have  been  if  at  Nora's  behest 
he  had  followed  a  singer's  lucrative  career.  This  would  have 
betrayed  his  true  talent  as,  Joyce  hints,  McCormack  betrayed 
his  by  catering  to  the  mass  public's  taste  with  shoddy  pro- 
grams. But  Shaun  is  also  modeled  on  Oliver  St.  John  Go- 
garty.  Mulligan  grown  older,  and  on  the  middle-aged  J.  F. 
Byrne,  the  original  of  Cranly.  A  naturalized  American, 
Byrne,  in  letters  and  during  a  personal  visit  to  Joyce  in  Paris, 
revealed  a  total  misapprehension  of  Joyce's  work,  and  com- 
plained that  in  the  Portrait  Joyce  appropriated  and  distorted 
one  of  his  anecdotes.  Shaun's  most  violent  invectives  echo 
Cranly's,  and  in  Cranly's  very  tones  he  parodies  the  warning 
Cranly  once  gave  Stephen:  Even  though  he  no  longer  be- 
lieves in  the  Church,  he  risks  eternal  damnation  by  refusing 
to  practise  its  observances.^ 

In  this  section,  all  those  whom  the  Postman  speaks  for 
are  dead.  Joyce's  external  antagonists  are  dead  souls;  the 
might-have-been  Joyces  are  his  own  dead  selves.  And  there 
is  another  reason  to  assign  iii  1  to  the  "Death"  stage.  Shaun 
is  ostensibly  Joyce's  polar  antithesis,  but  at  many  points  he 
embodies  Joyce's  present  self-disgust.  His  fine  apparel,  as 
inappropriate  for  a  man  of  letters  as  for  a  letter  carrier,  links 
him  to  the  dandified  Joyce.  Complaining  he  is  fated  to  be 
a  nomad,  Shaun  is  the  restless,  rootless  Joyce  who  in  pros- 


254  "^^^    PHUL 

perity  changed  his  abode  almost  as  often  as  in  penury  when, 
hke  his  father  before  him,  he  seemed  always  to  be  evading 
an    unpaid    landlord.    Reminding    Shem    of    Cranly's    un- 
forgotten  warning,  admonishing  the  prodigal  by  means  of 
a  fable,  Shaun  embodies  the  dreamer's  own  misgiving;  Joyce 
caricatures  his  present  materialism  in  Shaun  at  his  greediest. 
Shem's  way  is  not  through  the  gate  St.  Peter  guards,  yet 
he  has  never  relinquished  hope  for  the  grace  of  salvation. 
But  the  hour  is  late,  he  may  have  chosen  the  wrong  turn, 
and  the  single  theological  virtue  he  claims  may  be  not  hope 
but  delusion.  The  Gracehoper  shudders  not  from  literal  cold 
and  starvation  but  because  an  icy  terror  haunts  him.  Even 
a  sizzling  beefsteak,  "a  lugly  whizzling  tournedos"   (an  al- 
lusion to  the  indifferent  deity;  here  it  is  Lug,  the  Gaelic  sun 
god,   whistling  with   his   back   turned)    evokes   a   spectre: 
it  is  "an  irritant,  penetrant  .  .  .  spuk.  Grausssssss!   Opr!" 
{FW  ^16-1  J.  Spuk  is  a  spectre;  GrausSy  horror.  Opr  is  per- 
haps OpfeTy  a  sacrifice.)  No  cafe  can  shelter  him  from  the 
dread  the  gate  may  be  locked;  always  he  hears  the  chill  wind 
''ruching  sleets  off  the  coppeehouses"  {rutschen  is  to  shde; 
schliessen  to  shut,  to  lock;  the  house  is  Francois  Coppee's  — 
an  apostate  who  late  in  life  returned  to  the  Catholic  fold). 

Ill  2:  Here  we  are  taken  back  to  1904-12,  to  the  second 
"Birth"  into  manhood,  and  the  early  years  with  Nora.  Shaun 
is  now  Jaun:  a  compound  of  Don  Juan  and  jaune.  Yellow 
is  the  color  of  gold  and  glory,  and  of  the  papacy;  it  is  also 
Judas',  the  emblem  of  jealousy  and  venal  betrayal.'^  As 
Shaun's  jealous  envy  dominated  the  last  section,  Jaun's 
sexual  jealousy  dominates  this.  Still  singing,  still  a  pseudo 
savior,  Jaun  now  resembles  St.  Patrick  returning  to  convert 
the  pagan  Irish  and  transform  their  lovely  Muse  goddess 
Bride  into  a  Christian  saint.  Jaun  meets  his  sister  Issy  with 
her  twenty-eight  schoolmates.  The  girls  fondle  the  "lady- 
killer"  (FW  ^^o)  and  he  preaches  them  a  sermon  borrowed 
from  Father  Mike,  "bishop  titular  of  Dubloonik"  (FW  432). 


Circling  the  Square  255 

Celibacy  ill  suits  the  priest;  he  is  both  ''nuncupiscent"  and 
beset  by  homosexual  urges.  The  homily  advocates  chastity 
but  the  sexual  motivations  of  both  Shaun  and  his  bishop  are 
obvious.  The  prurient  preacher  is  jealous  of  the  girls'  suitors, 
and  threatens  with  violent  chastisement  any  maiden  who 
responds  to  a  wooer;  to  Jaun  these  threats  are  promises  of 
sadistic  delight.  Confessing  that  he  would  prefer  to  remain 
in  Ireland  if  he  could  be  guided  by  the  one  True  Church  and 
the  Virgin  who  is  its  type  —  *'Mona  Vera  Toutou  Ipostila, 
my  lady  of  Lyons"  (FW  449)  —Jaun  sadly  prepares  for 
exile^  promising  to  return.  Issy  becomes  Veronica  and  bids 
her  brother  farewell,  although  she  seems  curiously  confused 
as  to  his  identity,  mixing  Shem's  appellations  with  Shaun's.^ 
She  cheerfully  anticipates  material  and  sexual  gratification 
without  him,  and  reveals  her  readiness  to  "betrue"  him  with 
another  whom  she  will  ''betreu"  (betreuen,  attend  to,  FW 
459).  Jaun  becomes  Jaunathan  and  welcomes  Shem,  as 
David,  back  from  continental  exile.  In  a  passage  of  egregious 
lewdness  he  offers  for  David's  sexual  delectation  —  while 
deploring  David's  lack  of  enterprise  —  ''me  aunt  Juha  Bride" 
who  has  ''plenty  of  woom  in  the  smallclothes  for  the  boths- 
forus"  {FW  ^6^;  this  is  the  Station  of  the  Cross  in  which 
Christ  meets  his  Mother,  as  well  as  his  subsequent  com- 
mendation of  her  to  John's  care  at  the  cross). 

In  1904  Joyce  left  in  Dublin  a  circle  of  malcontents  who 
vocally  rebelled  against  the  British  Imperium  or  the  Roman 
Church,  or  both,  and  derided  the  mores  imposed  by  these 
ahen  institutions.  He  returned  in  1912  to  find  the  impudent 
tongues  prudently  stilled  and  their  owners  occupying  com- 
fortable niches  in  the  established  order.  George  Roberts  was 
manager  for  the  potential  publishers  of  Dubliners;  Joyce 
blamed  him  for  the  destruction  of  the  book  but  it  is  not 
clear  whether  he  was  the  false  friend  whom  Joyce  later  ac- 
cused of  having  betrayed  him  at  that  time  (L  311).  No 
published  data  suggest  that  a  conformist  friend  had,  like 
Robert  Hand  in  Exiles^  urged  on  Joyce  a  conformity  that 


256  VON    PHUL 

would  make  residence  in  Ireland  comfortable  and  nominated 
him  for  a  post  that  would  make  it  economically  feasible, 
while  slyly  undercutting  his  candidacy  (and  perhaps  wooing 
Nora  at  the  same  time).  But  the  Julia  Bride  episode  echoes 
Hand's  councils  of  expedience,  and  in  context  with  Exiles 
offers  circumstantial  evidence  that  in  1912  some  such  temp- 
tations were  set  before  the  Joyces.  Gogarty  may  be  impli- 
cated; Jaunathan  at  this  point  long  since  was  recognized  as 
a  caricature  of  him  and,  equating  the  Mother  of  Christ  with 
the  pseudo  Christ's  aunt,  Jaunathan  is  like  Mulhgan,  who 
by  subservient  assiduity  to  his  rich  aunt  virtually  substituted 
her  for  his  mother.  Like  all  Joyce's  ''brides,"  Julia  is  venal; 
like  the  Henry  James  character  whose  name  she  bears  she 
is  a  slightly  tarnished  virgin  on  whose  behalf  a  coarse 
quondam  suitor  inveigles  a  more  eligible  parti.  She  is  both 
Ireland  and  Irish  Christianity,  corrupted  by  the  dual  hegem- 
ony. Her  name  of  Juha  denominates  the  Roman  imperial 
gens,  while  Bride  is  the  indigenous  goddess  transmogrified 
into  a  saint.  Between  her  thighs  she  can  accommodate  the 
Bosphorus,  which  in  the  plan  for  Ulysses  flowed  between 
the  European  shore  —  the  British  State  —  and  the  Asiatic 
shore  — the  Roman  Church.  Goading  David  to  ravish  her, 
Jaunathan  urges  him  to  follow  his  cynical  example  and  ex- 
ploit Ireland  and  the  Church. 

But  this  section  also  mirrors  the  literal  sexual  conflicts  of 
Exiles.  Joyce's  working  notes  for  the  play  suggest  that  he 
was  unaware  how  sadistically  Rowan,  the  embodiment  of  his 
own  admitted  masochism,  manifests  the  jealous  possessive- 
ness  that  he  tediously  disclaims  throughout  three  acts.  In 
the  Exiles  notebook  Joyce  smugly,  almost  triumphantly, 
records  that  Nora  denounced  him  as  a  'Voman-killer" 
(E  118);  in  Finnegans  Wake  it  is  Jaun  who  is  derided  as 
a  ladykiller.  At  the  period  of  Exiles,  Joyce  indulged  himself, 
as  his  private  Giacomo  Joyce  notebook  reveals,  in  an  un- 
conscionably cruel  Don  Giovannism;  he  gloated  over  his 
deliberate  emotional  —  although  uncarnal  —  seduction  of  a 


Circling  the  Square  257 

young  pupil.  In  Exiles  he  was  probably  entirely  conscious  of 
splitting  his  masochism  and  his  concomitant  but  unacknowl- 
edged sadism  between  the  rivals  for  Bertha,  who  is  frankly 
Nora;  he  was  certainly  aware  of  the  homosexuality  latent  in 
Rowan's  confessedly  ''ignoble"  hope  for  vicarious  gratifica- 
tion by  an  affair  between  Bertha  and  Hand.  (The  same 
motivations  underhe  Bloom's  plans  to  bring  Stephen  and 
Molly  together,  but  they  are  combined  with  an  altruism 
that  seems  utterly  beyond  Rowan's  capacity.)  Just  before 
the  1912  sojourn  in  Ireland,  Joyce  had  encouraged  Nora,  up 
to  a  point,  in  accepting  the  attentions  of  Robert  Prezioso, 
a  somewhat  effeminate  Triestine  editor  whose  Christian 
name  and  profession  he  bestowed  on  Hand  (Prezioso's 
patronymic  appears  in  the  Exiles  notebook).  Thus  iii  2 
shows  us  as  in  a  distorting  mirror  the  emotional  situation 
of  the  play  which  itself  seems  to  reflect  actual  crises  that 
came  to  a  head  in  1912.  Father  Mike  and  the  preaching 
Jaun  are  less  timebound;  they  exempHfy  demonstratively  the 
generalized  observation  that  Irish  inhibitions,  like  clerical 
celibacy,  lead  to  homosexuality  and  sadism.  But  Joyce  does 
not  indict  only  his  own  obvious  antitheses.  He  reproaches 
himself  for  similar  aberrations:  jealous  possessiveness,  sad- 
ism, latent  homosexuality.  And  though  Issy,  unable  to  dis- 
tinguish between  her  brothers,  acts  out  Nora's  inability  to 
see  Joyce  as  different  from  any  other  man  —  a  lack  of  dis- 
crimination for  which  he  reproached  her  —  she  is  not  totally 
blind  and  confused;  in  her  view,  as  in  the  dreamer's,  the 
antitheses  are  after  all  identical. 

At  the  end  of  Exiles  Hand,  rather  surprisingly,  plans  to 
go  into  exile;  thus  Joyce  symbolically  banishes  another  un- 
worthy alter  ego.  Here  Jaun  departs  under  the  name  Haun, 
i.e.  Hand  (vd.  Webster  s).  But  a  careful  reading  leaves  us 
uncertain  whether  it  is  Shaun  or  Shem  who  departs;  they 
have  merged  once  more,  and  the  fleeing  Haun  seems  to 
comprise  Joyce  in  his  final  return  to  exile;  he  is  urged  to 
"work  your  progress"  {FW  4y^);  this  Joyce  is  now  doing, 


258  VON    PHUL 

as  writer  and  as  dreamer.  Yet  a  strong  admixture  of  Mul- 
ligan remains,  and  we  are  reminded  that  Gogarty  too  finally 
exiled  himself  to  the  United  States.  The  Postman,  pseudo 
Christ  and  type  of  Mercury,  takes  off  in  a  high  wind,  like 
''mercurial  Malachi"  Mulligan  who,  with  his  ''Mercury's 
hat  quivering  in  the  fresh  wind"  (U  21),  in  conscious 
blasphemy  impersonated  Joking  Jesus  saying  goodbye  on 
breezy  Olivet.  This  section,  with  all  its  echoes  of  the  tumult 
and  strife  of  early  manhood,  must  be  assigned  to  the  second 

—  "Marriage"  —  stage  of  the  major  life  cycle.® 

Ill  3:  Shaun  is  now  Yawn,  a  similacrum  of  an  effeminate, 
perversely  tempting,  cherubic  boy.  The  Old  Men  discover 
him  lying  so  inert  that  they  plan  an  inquest.  But  Yawn  is 
not  dead;  he  merely  "lay  low"  {FW  4^4),  swooning  or 
entranced,  so  their  investigation  combines  a  psychoanalysis 

—  an  in-quest  —  with  a  seance.  To  the  squabbhng  oldsters, 
alternately  hectoring  and  bewildered.  Yawn  replies  in  many 
voices.  A  yearning  boy  vainly  seeking  a  responsive  beloved, 
he  wails  for  his  "typette,"  his  "tactile  O"  (FW  ^jS);  a  woe- 
ful Tristan,  he  anticipates  betrayal  by  his  Isolde,  the  Brina- 
bride,  whom  he  warns  in  Parneirs  words:  "When  you  sell, 
get  my  price"  {FW  $00).  He  appeals  for  prayers  and  protec- 
tion to  the  "mother  of  my  tears"  (FW  $00).  The  fraternal 
struggles  of  the  whole  book  are  recalled,  and  so  is  the 
wedding  in  the  tavern,  that  ended  in  a  brawl.  At  one  point 
Yawn  repudiates  Kevin-Shaun  as  a  "sinted  sageness"  (FW 
4S2)',  at  another  he  denounces  as  mad  the  fifty-year-old 
"Toucher  'Thom* "  (FW  ^^06)  —  Joyce,  eternal  doubter, 
whose  Ulysses  is  a  mosaic  of  references  from  Thom's  Direc- 
tory. Yawn  says  his  name  is  "Trinathan  partnick  dieudon- 
nay"  {FW  4^8).  Through  his  mouth  we  hear  women's 
voices:  the  sister's  provocative  accents,  and  for  the  first  time 
an  extended  speech  by  alp  as  Mrs.  Earwicker,^'^  fiercely  de- 
fending herself  and  her  man  against  calumny.  Oscar  Wilde's 
ghost  speaks,  compounded  with  less  celebrated,  unidentified 


Circling  the  Square  259 

inverts;  this  dubious  personage  blends  into  hce,  who  closes 
the  section  with  a  long  speech,  at  first  defensive,  then 
boastful,  in  which  he  speaks  as  Dublin. 

The  Four  Old  Men,  truculent  and  rather  stupid,  are  the 
four  provinces  of  Ireland,  but  these  bumbling  inquisitors  are 
also  the  Four  Evangelists.  As  such  they  seem  to  incorporate 
the  irreducible  residue  of  a  Christian  conscience  based  upon 
Christ's  ethical  message.  For  all  his  seeming  blasphemy, 
Joyce  mocks  only  the  self-anointed  messiahs,  the  blasphe- 
mous false  prophets  who  wield  the  keys  of  the  Ondt's 
meretricious  heaven  as  weapons  of  temporal  power. 

Yawn  fears  the  Brinabride:  She  is  venal,  married  to  *'salt" 
—  money,  wages,  soldiers'  pay  — and  will  prove  herself  *'I 
sold"  (FW  $00).  She  is  also  a  looker-back,  like  Lot's  wife 
a  saltbride;  so  Yawn  voices  Joyce's  grievances  against  Nora. 
But  Yawn  is  also  the  youth  who,  despairing  of  winning  a 
flesh  and  blood  girl,  phantasized  an  impossible  she.  Al- 
though he  ostensibly  invokes  a  typist,  a  dactylo,  she  is  only 
a  ''type  pet,"  an  idealized  love  object.  In  his  inept  'Vila- 
nelle"  Stephen  offered  incense  to  the  apotheosized  temptress 
who  hovered  over  his  erotic  dreams;  so  dactylo  suggests  both 
the  finger  alphabet  of  the  Celtic  bards  (who,  like  Stephen, 
used  rigidly  traditional  verse  forms)  and  hints  at  mastur- 
bation, a  sterile  union  with  an  imagined  beloved.  But  ''tac- 
tile O"  alludes  also  to  the  youth's  recourse  to  whores,  the 
only  tangible  flesh  accessible  to  him  (in  Finnegans  Wake 
"O"  is  often  the  vulva).  Oscar  Wilde  merges  with  the 
father  partly  because  Stephen's  invert  companions  were 
snobs  sharing  Simon  Dedalus'  notions  of  the  good  life, 
partly  because  the  father  is  equally  implicated  with  the 
mother  in  the  etiology  of  the  complex  that  underlies  the 
sexual  aberrations,  partly  because  Anglo-Irish  Dublin,  for 
all  its  sightliness,  corrupts  its  sons. 

The  appeal  to  the  mother  reflects  Stephen's  anguish  when, 
losing  the  Faith,  he  feared  to  lose  the  mediation  of  the 
Virgin  to  whom  he  had  been  so  devoted;  it  also  is  a  belated 


26o 


VON    PHUL 


acknowledgment  of  the  need  for  the  human  mother's 
prayer  that  her  son  should  learn  the  ways  of  the  heart.  But 
Yawn  is  not  without  his  own  faith.  As  Trinathan  partnick 
dieudonnay  he  now  identifies  himself  with  St.  Patrick,  offer- 
ing Irish  idolators  a  pure  faith,  the  gift  of  God  (Nathan  is 
a  gift;  Jonathan  —  the  Lord  has  given  —  perhaps  more  nearly 
approximates  Dieu  donne).  Yet  he  is  part-Nick,  the  devil 
is  still  in  him.  In  Finnegans  Wake  Joyce  indicates  more  than 
once  that  his  lifework  is  a  thank-offering  to  the  creative 
Spirit.  The  saint  returning  to  Ireland  as  God's  gift  and  bear- 
ing God's  gift  is  the  antithesis  of  Gottgab  and  Baggut  (FW 
490-1 )  whose  worship  is  lip  service  and  the  reeking  sacrifice 
of  Abel.  Yet  Joyce's  surrogates  are  Promethean,  and  Prome- 
theus, as  crafty  as  Jacob,  tricked  Zeus  of  the  choice  flesh  for 
his  burnt  offering  by  disguising  it  as  a  bag  of  guts.  Here 
again  Joyce  seems  to  re-examine  the  position  he  has  held  for 
so  long:  Is  he  Dieu  donne,  or  after  all  only  Baggut,  one 
with  the  antagonists  he  has  scorned? 

In  all  the  babble  we  miss  Shaun's  familiar  bluster,  cen- 
soriousness  and  condescension:  Byrne,  Wyndham  Lewis, 
Gogarty,  are  forgotten.  The  conflict  now  is  purely  interior, 
the  contestants  truly  bosom  enemies.  We  hear  only  the 
voices  of  Yawn's  inner  selves,  or  those  of  his  nearest  and 
dearest,  that  molded  Ego  and  Super-Ego  and  set  them  at 
odds.  Small  wonder  the  Four  cannot  discover  the  true 
identity  of  this  "regressively  dissociated"  Yawn.  At  one 
point  Matthew  (Ulster)  himself  dissociates  into  Loyal 
Ulster-Europe,  i.e.  the  British  Empire  equated  with  Europe, 
and  Down  —  also  a  part  of  Ulster  —  as  Asia.  The  latter 
speaks  cogently:  "He  is  cured  by  faith  who  is  sick  of  fate. 
The  prouts  who  will  invent  a  writing  there  ultimately  is 
the  poeta,  still  more  learned,  who  discovered  the  raiding 
there  originally.  That's  the  point  of  eschatology  our  book 
of  kills  reaches  for  now  in  soandso  counterpoint  words" 
(FW  482).  The  poetaster  who  by  displaying  his  booklearn- 
ing  disclosed  his  hostihty  (discovered  his  raiding  — or  read- 


Circling  the  Square  261 

ing)  blends  aspects  of  Prout  —  spoiled  priest  and  Irish  hu- 
morist—with those  of  Proust,  the  confirmed  chronicler  of 
his  own  past  seen  from  a  Parisian  point  of  view;  he  is  the 
inventor  of  the  writing  in  which  the  polyphonic  voices  even 
now  express  the  aging  man's  own  eschatology.  In  his  sug- 
gestions for  diagnosis  and  therapy  Matthew  is  truly  catholic; 
he  prescribes  both  faith  and  psychoanalysis.  In  Freudian 
jargon  he  observes  ''affects  recausing  altereffects" :  the  pres- 
ent emotions  cause  a  recurrence  of  the  old  {alter)  symptoms 
of  the  patient's  youth;  perhaps  the  same  religious  terrors 
(altar).  He  advocates  Freudian  techniques:  to  twist  "the 
penman's  tale  posterwise"  —  to  take  a  posterior  (retrospec- 
tive) view,  and  to  interpret  the  dream  by  opposites.  Thus 
he  discovers  that  ''the  gist  is  the  gist  of  Shaum  but  the 
hand  is  the  hand  of  Sameas"  (FW  ^8^ ) .  He  who  lies  here 
(gist  is  a  place  of  repose  or  burial)  seems  to  be  Shaun-Esau, 
but  appearances  are  illusions  {Schau  is  show;  Schaurtiy 
foam).  The  hand  is  that  of  Sameas,  James;  he  is  Jacob,  who 
wrestled  all  night  with  God  and,  prevailing,  received  His 
blessing  but  never  learned  His  name. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  that  in  this  section  Shaun 
is  a  figment;  Yawn  is  entirely  Shem:  Stephen  and  Joyce.  The 
tormented  youth,  closing  his  eyes  to  the  phenomenal,  blind 
to  eternal  verities,  lying  low  in  neurotic  acedia,  we  have  met 
before.  But  he  is  also  the  Joyce  of  the  present,  tottering  at 
the  edge  of  doom,  his  eyes  literally  darkened,  his  inner 
vision  clouded  by  emotional  woe  and  spiritual  terror.  Yet 
he  is  never  so  blind  that  he  cannot  view  his  soul  sickness 
with  the  dual  insights  of  theology  and  psychology. 

Ill  4:  The  dream  regresses  to  the  dreamer's  early  childhood. 
The  parents  arise  from  their  "bed  of  trial"  {FW  ^^8)  to 
comfort  the  Httle  Jerry-Shem,  who,  frightened  by  a  night- 
mare about  his  father,  has  "bespilled  himself  from  his 
foundingpen"  {FW  563).  In  the  next  bed  is  his  twin,  "bright 
bull  babe  Frank  Kevin"  {FW  ^62 )  —  Shaun,  whose  vigil  we 


262  VON    PHUL 

are  ostensibly  sharing;  their  sister  hes  nearby.  The  mother 
rebukes  the  father  for  exposing  himself  to  the  children,  the 
father  urgently  demands  his  marital  rights,  both  express 
doubt  whether  the  children  are  safely  asleep.  At  one  point 
the  scene  is  described  as  a  pageant  of  medieval  royalty.  The 
parents  return  to  bed  and  a  joyful,  carefree  coitus;  practising 
contraception,  they  ''never  wet  the  tea"  {FW  S^S)-  ^ 
eulogy  praises  the  parents  and  all  progenitors  bowed  by  the 
burden  of  family  cares.  We  see  a  boy  grown  older,  a  Tristan 
poetically  wooing  his  sister  as  she  urinates  behind  a  door. 
Outside  the  house  the  Constable  alternately  surveys  the 
landscape  and  the  lighted  chamber  windows.  A  hissing 
catamite  accosts  him,  calling  on  'my  auxy,  Jimmy  d'Arcy" 
{FW  ^8y)  and  on  Freddy,  another  homosexual,  to  confirm 
his  tale  of  the  suspicious  interest  taken  in  them  by  an  elderly 
refugee  who,  with  his  "scented  mouf,"  boasts  of  past  great- 
ness. 

In  Shaun's  Fourth  Watch  he  is  mentioned  only  when  he 
is  introduced  as  Kevin;  thereafter  the  twins  merge  into  one. 
The  youth  enraptured  by  the  sister's  "chamber  music"  is 
the  young  Joyce  whose  lyrics  were  so  melodious  yet  emo- 
tionally so  dilute.  The  duahty  of  the  twins  here  suggests  the 
artist's  dual  nature.  Kevin-Shaun,  ever  striving  to  impose 
organization  and  form,  is  always  heliotrope,  an  Apollonian 
child  of  the  sun  god.  Jerry-Shem  is  hyacinth;  like  the  flower, 
he  bears  the  woeful  imprint  "ai,  ai,"  Apollo's  scarification. 
For  Shem  is  Dionysian,  suckled  at  the  buckgoat  paps  of 
another  father,  and  drawing  inspiration  from  dark  wells 
sacred  to  the  moon.  Rank's  Myth  of  the  Birth  of  the  Hero 
probably  accounts  for  the  depiction  of  the  family  as  royalty 
in  an  Oedipal  or  Hamlet-like  situation.  The  Oedipus  com- 
plex motivates  the  brother  to  seek  a  beloved  in  his  mother's 
pattern  as  he  woos  his  sister,  "brooder's  cissiest  auntybride" 
(FW  ^61).  As  prototype  of  the  still  undiscovered  beloved, 
she  is  an  ante-bride,  this  side  (cis)  of  the  mate  to  come.  The 
usual  defence  masks  the  degree  of  consanguinity,  displacing 


Circling  the  Square  263 

mother  to  aunt.  There  is  also  Irish  allegory  here;  Issy  is  a 
younger  Julia  Bride,  virgin-mother-aunt.  As  early  as  the 
Portrait  Joyce  symbolized  by  sibling  incest  the  parochial  in- 
grownness  of  the  Irish. 

The  father's  person  is  described  with  strong  homosexual 
overtones  as  the  topography  of  Phoenix  Park.  This  too  uses 
sexual  inversion  and  Greek  myth  to  symbolize  Irish  politico- 
social  realities.  The  father  is  again  inculpated  as  a  factor 
in  the  son's  neurosis;  and  again  the  father  image  is  the 
British  regime  (Phoenix  Park  was  the  site  of  the  viceregal 
residence).  The  viceroy  holds  the  sons  of  Ireland  in  the 
same  sterile  bondage  as  the  fixation  that  paralyzed  Stephen. 
The  homosexual  redcoats  convey  similar  meanings,  but 
while  their  spokesman  leeringly  forces  on  "Jininiy"  shameful 
memories  of  his  past,  he  compels  the  dreamer  to  even 
darker  reflections  on  his  present.  Now  impotent  in  two 
senses,  he  is  estranged  from  his  muse  and  his  wife,  doubly 
a  widower.  Incorrigibly  retrospective,  remembering  past 
greatness  (as  author  of  Ulysses) ^  he  sees  himself  always  as 
a  refugee,  a  ''colhdeorscape"  {FW  143),  a  ''fuyer-escaper" 
{FW  228).  Exile  seemed  to  him  escape  from  the  intoler- 
able; was  it  perhaps  only  escapism  that  in  the  end  brought 
him  to  Paris  like  the  dying  Oscar  Wilde,  a  pathetic,  epicene 
penitent? 

But  impotence  may  be  retribution  for  another  sin,  that 
Stephen  Dedalus  saw  as  truly  impious:  the  frustration  of 
procreation.  These  parents  avoiding  impregnation  are  very 
inadequate  exemplars  of  creativity.  One  suspects  that  here 
as  always  the  dreamer,  identifying  himself  with  his  father, 
projects  his  own  misdeeds  on  hce.  Throughout  Finnegans 
Wake  green  leaves  are  figures  for  the  poet's  pages,  but  the 
sere  tea  leaves,  untouched  by  the  life-giving  fluid,  offer  no 
refreshing  draft  brewed  with  water  drawn  from  the  Muse's 
springs.  (The  magical  urine  is  another  end  product  of  these 
mysterious  waters.)  In  middle  life  Joyce  told  Frank  Budgen, 
rather  wistfully,  that  he  hoped  for  more  children.  But  Nora 


264  VON    PHUL 

bore  him  only  two;  a  third  pregnancy  ended  in  a  miscar- 
riage. Once  again  the  book  discloses  itself  as  a  prolonged, 
total  confession,  no  matter  how  it  obscures  its  revelations. 

The  Constable  takes  on  new  dimensions  in  iii  4.  Pre- 
viously an  alternate  for  Shaun  as  the  ''parochial  watch'' 
(FW  186) f  censor  of  Joyce's  work  and  conduct,  he  seems 
transmuted  into  Shem,  who  has  finally  attained  the  com- 
prehensive vision  Stephen  lacked:  He  can  look  inward 
through  the  windows  of  the  house  while  also  observing  the 
world  about  him.  Anticipating  breakfast,  he  is  Joyce  of  the 
present,  enmeshed  in  materialism;  yet  he  is  also  the  troubled 
Joyce  dreaming  of  the  dawn  when  he  will  break  his  spiritual 
fast.ii 

Book  III  is  a  ricorso,  a  book  of  the  eternal  return,  a  night 
of  Brahma  preparing  the  new  cycle  to  come.  As  such  it 
epitomizes  Finnegans  Wake,  which  serves  the  same  function 
in  the  structure  of  the  tetralogy:  Each  is  a  Book  of  Death 
containing  the  promise  of  rebirth.  We  must  now  place  the 
remaining  divisions  of  Finnegans  Wake.  There  will  be  some 
overlapping,  since  each  stage,  revolving,  evolves  its  successor. 
We  must  also  be  mindful  that  in  each  cycle  rebirth,  the 
stage  of  quiescent  gestation,  leads  to  birth,  in  the  next  cycle, 
and  remember  that  Joyce  sees  himself  as  twiceborn,  having 
already  experienced  one  death  and  rebirth. 

Book  I  was  well  named,  by  the  authors  of  the  Skeleton 
Key,  the  Book  of  the  Parents.  Although  we  rename  it  the 
Book  of  Birth,  it  is  clear  that  in  the  four  sections  that 
compose  its  first  half  the  male  heritage  and  the  father  image 
are  central,  while  the  remaining  four  sections  emphasize  the 
mother's  influence  on  her  artist  son.  Yet  the  work  begins 
with  the  female  birth  image  of  the  river;  falling  asleep,  the 
dreamer  both  returns  to  the  womb  and  invokes  the  Liffey 
as  Mother,  Anima  and  Muse. 

I  1  concerns  wars  and  battles,  invasions  and  fraternal  strife; 
the  past  as  recorded  in  anthropology  and  history,  legend 


Circling  the  Square  265 

and  literature.  Female  figures  appear  chiefly  in  ancillary  roles. 
The  Prankqueen,  however,  is  more  than  a  handmaiden;  a 
legendary  figure,  she  bursts  through  the  legend  to  become 
the  Female  Principle:  Mother,  Goddess,  Anima,  Muse.  The 
Prankqueen  episode  epitomizes  the  dreamer's  life  cycle 
from  puberty  to  the  present. 

I  2:  Here  the  father  is  ostensibly  the  protagonist.  He  is  the 
victim  of  calumny,  but  his  rumored  guilt  is  really  another's 
(who  is  recognizably  Joyce  in  his  Dublin  days).  A  Cad 
(also  Joyce)  accosts  hce,  and  taking  his  panicky  response 
as  a  sign  of  guilt,  spreads  further  scandal  about  him.  Another 
surrogate  of  Joyce  composes  a  scurrilous  ballad  about  hce, 
and  with  his  unsavory  gang  sings  it  to  a  delighted  public. 
The  ballad  imputes  to  hce  various  familiar  misdeeds:  He 
is  an  invert  who  seeks  to  remake  Dublin  by  imposing  reli- 
gious reform,  contraception  and  prohibition.  We  recognize 
Joyce's  symbols  for  sterility  and  frustration,  and  recall  Ste- 
phen Dedalus  presumptuously  aspiring  to  form  a  new 
conscience  for  his  race.  Hce  bears  both  Dublin's  guilt  and 
the  guilt  Joyce  incurred  in  the  period  of  alienation,  the  first 
"death."  The  ballad  may  perhaps  be  equated  with  Dublin- 
ers,  of  which  the  greater  part  was  written  before  the  1904 
''rebirth."  It  was  Joyce's  first  major  creative  writing;  so  the 
section  embraces  a  modicum  of  the  artistic  creativity  of 
"marriage." 

I  3  concerns  the  fate  of  the  singers  of  the  ballad  —  all  sur- 
rogates of  Joyce.  They  are  rumored  to  be  dead,  mad,  or  in 
exile.  There  is  mention  of  the  slaying  and  resurrection  of 
a  sacrificial  god.  Two  passages  refer  to  old  men  who  love 
young  girls;  one  is  C.  L.  Dodgson.  Maudhn,  he  hmply  holds 
the  "tata  of  a  tiny  victorienne,  Alys"  {FW  ^y).  This  is 
Joyce  "self-exposed"  as  Stephen,  unable  to  let  go  the  lily 
(fys),  the  reminder  of  the  liliata  rutilantium  of  his  mother's 
obsequies.  He  is  still  immobilized,  a  statue  in  "clericalease'^ 


266  VON    PHUL 

garb,  by  the  maternal  farewell  (tata).  But  the  grave's  victory 
is  nothing  (rien).  A  drunken  wretch  gives  ''pseudojocax" 
reasons  for  hammering  on  a  gate  crowned  by  a  ''cow's 
bonnet"  (FW  63).  It  is  the  student  Joyce  (Jocax  was  a  col- 
lege nickname)  attacking  and  vainly  seeking  to  impress  a 
bovine  Dublin;  it  is  also  Joyce  of  now,  seeking  truth  by 
storming  the  horn  (here  "horned")  gate  of  dreams.  The 
section  thus  deals  with  the  self-examination  and  remorse  of 
both  death  stages,  but  hints  at  rebirth. 

I  4  also  treats  of  death  and  promises  rebirth.  Hce,  who  is 
both  the  son's  victim  and  the  culprit  son,  is  unmindful  of 
the  'watchful  treachers"  at  his  wake;  they  compound  Joyce's 
antagonist  betrayers  and  Joyce  himself,  always  the  voyeur 
seeking  the  Creator's  secrets  and  His  power.  Hce  repeatedly 
escapes  the  tombs  made  ready  for  him.  An  unidentified  as- 
sailant ambushes  an  unidentified  victim,  but  they  are  recon- 
ciled. Festy  King,  author  of  the  ballad,  is  tried  for  assault 
and  indecency.  Numerous  witnesses  reveal  themselves  as 
composites  of  Joyce's  perennial  antagonists  and  of  Joyce; 
they  are  said  to  be  identical  opposites.  The  trial,  with  the 
Four  Old  Men  as  judges,  is  in  essence  the  same  as  the 
inquisition  of  Yawn.  Its  conclusion  points  to  atonement 
through  reconciliation,  and  rebirth  by  the  aid  of  the  be- 
loved, the  Leap  Year  Girl.  While  her  Twenty-Eight  school- 
mates adulate  Shaun,  who  compounds  the  hostile  aspects 
of  the  witnesses,  she  consoles  the  dejected  Shem,  even 
though  he  has  reviled  their  father  and  expressed  his  con- 
tempt of  court  by  emitting  a  stench.  There  is  an  account 
of  a  fox  hunt;  the  prey  saves  his  brush  (the  artist's  imple- 
ment); we  can  only  guess  whether  his  pursuers  are  avenging 
hell  hounds  or  the  Hound  of  Heaven.  The  first  four  sections 
complete  a  cycle;  they  pivot  around  the  father-son,  but, 
circling  back  to  the  maternal  river,  conclude:  "we  list  as 
she  bibs  us,  by  the  waters  of  babalong"  {FW  103).  The 
exiled  dreamer  knows  his  bent  (list)  was  determined  by  his 
first  nourishment  (bibs). 


Circling  the  Square  267 

I  5  is  Anna  Livia's  "mamafesta."  It  is  Joyce's  work  {Ulysses 
and  probably  Finnegans  Wake);  a  manuscript  as  priceless  as 
the  Book  of  Kells,  it  was  exhumed  from  a  dump  by  the 
mother  as  a  hen,  and  found  by  the  twins  as  children.  Yet 
in  its  pristine  form  it  is  the  tea-stained  letter  of  a  simple, 
subliterate  Irishwoman;  it  alludes  to  birth,  marriage  and 
death,  and  closes  with  four  ''crosskisses"  (FW  m);  this 
is  a  woman's  prayer.  But  '  mamafesta"  is  also  mammary 
feasts  (festa);  the  mother's  breast  is  an  equivocal  fount.  If 
the  son  remains  fixed  in  inversion,  the  milk  is  poison;  if  he 
weans  himself,  accepting  from  his  mother  only  what  will 
foster  the  bisexuality  that  inspires  the  artist  and  deepens  his 
insight,  her  gift  is  bountiful.  With  its  allusions  to  suckling 
and  the  twins  as  children,  this  is  the  ''Birth"  stage,  compre- 
hending both  the  original  birth  and  the  rebirth. 

I  6  is  an  examination  in  which  the  dreamer  questions  him- 
self and  his  alter  ego.  The  twelve  questions  and  answers 
once  more  recapitulate  the  cycle.  The  first  three,  concerning 
father,  mother  and  the  home  (the  Inn,  or  Dublin),  are 
Birth.  The  fourth  answer  has  four  parts;  it  treats  of  the 
four  provinces  of  Ireland  represented  by  four  cities;  each 
reply  is  delivered  by  a  lover  in  the  appropriate  local  brogue, 
and  the  parts  respectively  emphasize  birth,  marriage,  death 
and  rebirth.  Questions  Five  and  Six  deal  with  the  man- 
servant and  the  crone,  bowed  by  the  practical  cares  of 
domestic  Hfe.  The  seventh  concerns  the  jurors  —  or  the 
Apostles.  Twelve,  Joyce  said,  was  the  public  number,  and 
these  men  represent  the  whole  society.  Question  Eight 
portrays  womankind  as  the  tempting  and  delectable  Mag- 
gies. Question  Nine  reveals  the  artist  ''collideorscape"  dream- 
ing of  his  work  in  progress.  Question  Ten  has  the  acrid  reek 
of  a  burnt-out  love  match  (''lovemutch,"  FW  143):  An 
apparently  materialistic,  faithless,  self-centered  woman  gives 
the  answer.^^  Thus  from  Four  to  Ten  the  series  mirrors 
various  aspects  of  ''Marriage":  its  tasks  and  joys,  its  social 
connotations,  its  creative  rewards,  and  the  bitter  mystery 


268  VON    PHUL 

of  love  that  Stephen's  mother  knew  so  well.  In  Question 
Eleven  the  "acheseyeld  from  Ailing"  asks,  de  profundis, 
whether  his  adversaries  and  critics  would  save  his  soul;  the 
long  reply  (in  part  a  parody  of  Wyndham  Lewis'  censure  of 
Joyce)  is  negative.  This  is  the  present  stage  of  deathly 
despondency.  The  final  question  and  answer  imply  rebirth 
through  reconciliation:  *'Sacer  esto?"  despite  the  mark  of 
interrogation,  is  an  imperative;  the  reply,  **Semus  sumus," 
suggests  that  the  dreamer  in  atonement  is  not  accursed,  but 
dedicated  and  holy;  it  also  suggests  he  is  brooding  and  mut- 
tering to  himself  {mussumus,  Latin:  we  brood  or  mutter). 
The  examination  section,  showing  the  interrelationship  of 
sex  and  art,  is  ''Marriage,"  but  it  mingles  the  fruitful 
introspection  of  the  reborn  artist  in  young  manhood  and 
maturity  with  the  bitter  self-examination  of  the  present 
''death"  period. 

I  7  shows  us  Shem  the  Penman,  self-immured  in  an  ivory 
tower  littered  with  discards  of  the  past.  He  fears  perpetual 
egocentric  retrospection  will  dry  up  the  springs  of  inspira- 
tion —  this  is  the  dreamer  now.  The  Constable  accosts  him, 
disparaging  his  work  in  terms  of  Dubliners,  the  sour  fruit 
of  the  first  death  stage,  disapproving  his  drinking  and  his 
free  union.  Absurd  though  the  Constable  is,  for  Shem  he 
is  a  bridge  to  the  past  and  the  real  world  of  the  present; 
when  he  becomes  Justius,  his  censure  is  more  valid,  and 
Shem  —  now  Mercius  —  despairs.  This  is  the  present  death. 
He  cowers,  remembering  the  reproachful  voice  of  his  dead 
mother,  but  he  exorcizes  the  "brown  mummy"  by  invoking 
the  riant,  living  Anna  Livia,  and  raising  the  life  wand  that 
makes  the  dead  speak.  Thus  this  section  too  shows  us  death 
but  promises  rebirth. 

I  8  is  the  poetic  Anna  Livia  section.  Alp  gives  her  children 
equivocal  gifts.  Robing  herself  like  a  goddess  she  emerges 
as  a  figure  of  fun,  a  pigmy  conjure  woman.  But  when  her 


Circling  the  Square  269 

man  sinks  into  depression  and  acedia,  to  restore  him  she 
enlists  the  allure  of  all  women.  The  light  fails,  the  voices 
fade,  but  we  are  conscious  that  through  the  night  the  river 
flows  on  bringing  birth  and  rebirth.  Even  now  it  has  com- 
pleted the  cycle  once  more,  bringing  us  back  to  the  opening 
page  of  the  book. 

Book  II  is  of  course  the  Book  of  Marriage.  Its  central  theme 
is  sex  in  the  life  of  the  artist.  While  each  section  touches 
on  several  periods  of  Joyce's  hfe,  there  is  in  general  a  progres- 
sion in  time;  the  focus  of  each  section  is  a  period  later  than 
that  of  the  preceding  one. 

II  1,  the  Mime  of  Mick,  Nick  and  the  Maggies,  is  both  a 
youthful  battle  of  the  sexes  and  the  conflict  between  the 
Apollonian  and  the  Dionysian.  The  dreamer,  as  Nick-Glugg, 
cannot  give  the  required  answer,  heliotrope,  in  the  girls' 
game.  Equally  vainly  he  seeks  to  unriddle  their  equivocal 
nature,  but  receives  from  them  only  mocking  negatives.  Are 
they  jewels,  or  tokens  of  the  devil?  Are  they  "jaoneofergs" 
{FW  2^^),  embattled  saintly  virgins,  or  like  Molly,  affirmers 
of  life,  yea-sayers,  and  sources  of  power  {ja  one  of  ergs)? 
Rebuffed  and  angry,  he  rejects  the  sacraments  and,  as  Joyce 
explained  it  (L  295),  threatens  to  write  ''blackmail  stuff" 
about  his  parents.  He  escapes  —  into  exile  —  again  and 
again.  The  ''first  death"  is  mirrored;  "dazed  and  late  in  his 
crave"  he  is  Stephen  of  Ulysses,  even  the  once  urgent  libido 
defunct.  But  he  is  rescued  by  a  "moliman"  {FW  2^0-^^ 
is  a  conglomeration  of  allusions  to  "Circe"  and  other  epi- 
sodes involving  Bloom).  Finally,  "croonless,  creedless  hangs 
his  haughty"  (FW  2p)  and  the  "producer"  of  the  Mime 
causes  Glugg  to  fall  into  "abuliousness."  This  is  the  first 
acedia  and  the  present  one;  he  will  be  rescued  by  another 
Eve,  created  "at  a  side  issue"  {FW  2^^)  from  his  own  being 
to  meet  his  need.  The  section  parodies  all  Joyce's  work 
including   unpubhshed   juvenilia;   it   mocks    especially   the 


270  VON    PHUL 

young  Stephen  in  his  Shelleyan  mood,  so  that  although  it 
reflects  the  present  abuhousness,  it  specifically  concerns  the 
early  experiments  with  sex  and  art,  the  protomarriage  period. 

II  2  portrays  the  intellectual  rather  than  the  artist.  A  would- 
be  philosopher,  a  juvenile  pedant,  prepares  lessons  with  his 
mocking  brother.  Their  sister  sits  by  teasing  them  with  com- 
ments vulgar  and  anti-intellectual,  but  pregnant  with  ageless 
female  lore.  Whatever  subject  the  curriculum  touches,  the 
pupils  somehow  relate  it  to  sex,  the  topic  that  fills  their 
minds.  At  mid-point,  while  Dolph  (Shem)  diagrams  the 
female  genital  —  and  urinary  —  apparatus  in  a  quasi-Euclid- 
ean demonstration,  there  is  a  recess.  The  future  is  revealed 
in  a  vision:  The  brothers  will  someday  sit  together,  rem- 
iniscing, over  the  fleshpots  of  Paris.  They  will  recall  the 
return  of  an  exile  to  Ireland,  and  a  wedding  in  exile  that 
marries  a  ''companion''  to  an  isolated,  self-pitying  Isolde. 
An  inept  critic  will  attempt  to  explain  the  artist  as  though 
he  were  a  conventional  writer  of  infantile  simplicity  (this 
is  J.  F.  Byrne's  estimate  of  Joyce).  As  lessons  are  resumed, 
the  satirical  twin  has  exchanged  places  with  his  solemn 
brother,  as  in  captivity  to  the  Prankqueen  Hilary  becomes 
Tristian  and  Tristopher  is  transformed  into  the  dissipated 
Toughertrees.  This  section,  revealing  the  life-changing  effects 
of  love  hoped  for  and  love  attained,  touches  on  puberty  but 
chiefly  concerns  the  early  married  years  —  the  period  of 
Exiles  — with,  reference  to  Joyce's  grievances  against  Nora. 
Throughout,  mother  wit  sets  at  nought  the  male  intellect. 

II  3  is  the  Tavern  scene.  The  dreamer  is  first  seen  as  a 
tailor  or  screeder,  a  scribe  who  cuts  things  up,  shadowed  by 
the  Ship's  Husband,  his  dull  domesticated  self.  The  Tailor 
vainly  attempts  to  fit  the  hunchbacked  Norwegian  Captain; 
this  sea  rover  is  both  father  image  and  the  dreamer's  self. 
In  a  television  skit  the  dreamer  is  Taff,  and  at  first  indistin- 
guishable from  his  partner  Butt.  They  diverge  into  the  fa- 


Circling  the  Square  271 

miliar  antitheses,  but  at  the  end  are  specifically  said  to  be 
identical.  As  accomplices  in  shooting  the  Russian  General 
they  are  Joyce  in  late  adolescence  seeking  answers  to  cosmic 
riddles  in  esoteric  cults  and  looking  for  political  solutions 
to  mundane  problems.  The  general  is  two  "das"  {FW  101; 
i.e.  two  fathers,  two  Russian  yeses):  The  Church-State 
tyranny  is  equated  with  the  alien  Russian  domination  of 
Finland;  each  requires  from  its  yes  men  a  double  assent. 
But  the  general  also  symbolizes  Joyce's  double  vision  of  the 
atonement  of  son  and  father,  for  the  father-general  rises 
apotheosized  and  confesses  all  Joyce's  oft-confessed  offenses. 
The  tavern  becomes  the  scene  of  a  wedding;  ostensibly  the 
marriage  of  the  Norwegian  Captain,  it  is  also  the  Tailor's. 
Like  Tim  Finnegan's  wake,  the  festivities  become  a  "mellay," 
but  it  is  no  jolly  sportive  brawl.  The  celebrants  are  a  men- 
acing mob,  the  chimes  ring  knells,  dreadful  forebodings  of 
death  are  heard:  timor  mortis  conturbat  me.  In  truth  it  is 
a  lament  for  a  maker,  for  the  roving  seaman  is  "Cawcaught. 
Coocaged"  {FW  329)  in  a  deadly  domesticity.  The  Four 
Old  Men,  inundated  by  water  parted  from  the  sea,  plain- 
tively cry  "Hide!  Seek!"  (FW  372).  The  once  inspiring 
water,  cut  off  from  its  living  source,  is  literally  lethal;  the 
wine  of  inspiration  has  become  Heidsieck,  emblem  of  stulti- 
fying luxury.  At  the  end  the  Tavernkeeper,  thinking  himself 
alone,  drains  the  dregs  his  guests  have  left. 

II  4  again  links  marriage,  emasculation  and  death,  yet  hints 
at  resurrection.  The  tale  of  Tristan  and  Isolde  is  interwoven 
with  an  account  of  the  Four  Old  "heladies,"  utterly  senile 
and  epicene.  Their  names  —  those  of  the  Evangelists  —  are 
telescoped  into  Mamalujo;  not  the  years  alone,  but  luxury, 
has  effeminized  them,  for  lujo  (Spanish)  is  luxury.  In  "re- 
memboring"  the  escapades  of  their  Dublin  youth,  it  is  always 
Joyce's  past  they  recollect.  One  former  boon  companion, 
a  sort  of  Houyhnhnm,  is  the  bitter  young  Jovce  equating 
himself  with  Swift;  another,  a   "nailscissor,"  slyly  derides 


272  VON    PHUL 

Stephen's  ambition  to  emulate,  as  artist,  the  detachment  of 
a  nailparing  deity.  All  the  old  friends  meet  sad  fates,  and 
all  their  names  are  variants  of  Mark  of  Cornwall's.  (Al- 
though the  second  oldster,  Mark  Lyons  or  St.  Mark,  is  the 
patron  of  marriage,  allusions  to  him  often  suggest  im- 
potence: e.g.:  ''there  was  never  a  marcus  .  .  .  among  the 
manhes."  FW  g6.)  Drooling  as  they  watch  Tristan  and 
Isolde,  the  Four  are  Joyce  recalling  his  own  elopement  when 
he  was  virile  as  this  athletic  Tristan  and,  like  him,  mouthed 
abstruse  philosophy  and  derivative  verse  to  an  Isolde  who 
had  "nothing  under  her  hat  but  red  hair  and  solid  ivory  .  .  . 
and  .  .  .  bedroom  eyes"  (FW  396).  Isolde  is  Nora,  always 
decrying  Joyce's  work  and  mourning  for  her  "lost  lover," 
and  thus  unfaithful  to  the  mate  at  her  side.  For  Mark  is 
the  same  lover  grown  older,  betrayed  and  unmanned  by  her 
incorrigible  repining.  In  Isolde's  backward  view  her  "luftcat 
revol"  {FW  388)  is  the  ardent  young  man  who  offered  tact, 
and  a  tactile  love;  now  the  "nephew"  is  only  a  "wehpen"; 
Joyce's  pen  is  her  woe.  To  close  the  section  the  Four  sing 
a  song  of  four  stanzas,  each  concerning  one  of  the  life 
stages;  the  third  particularly  is  packed  with  death  imagery 
Joyce  used  as  early  as  "The  Dead."  So  the  section  shows 
marriage  as  deadly,  but  it  promises  rebirth,  for  to  the  old 
men,  bedridden  and  dying  a  few  pages  earlier,  the  gift  of 
song  returns  at  the  end. 

Book  IV  is,  of  course.  Rebirth,  as  the  radio  proclaims: 
"Array!  Surrection"  (FW  593).  Now  the  dreamer  offers 
more  affirmatively  than  before  the  "left  hinted  palinode" 
[FW  ^j^)  as  confession,  expiation  and  atonement.  How 
far-reaching  and  unequivocal  the  positions  are  is  debatable, 
but  in  view  of  the  whole  tenor  of  the  tetralogy  and  in  the 
light  of  readings  of  the  last  book  too  involved  to  be  at- 
tempted here,  Joyce's  cunningly  veiled  statement  can  be 
tentatively  summarized  as  follows.  An  omnipotent,  intelli- 
gent creator  continues  to  create  a  dynamic  cosmos;  becom- 


Circling  the  Square  273 

ing  rather  than  being,  it  is  process,  work  in  progress  though 
not  necessarily  ''progressive."  The  Creator  eludes  dogma  and 
dialectic.  He  seems  indifferent,  but  to  a  maturer  Stephen 
He  is  not  a  mahgn  hangman,  but  inscrutable,  as  infinitely 
beyond  human  question  and  judgment  as  Job's  Creator.  But 
though  He  is  remote,  to  those  who,  like  Anna  Livia,  have 
never  ceased  to  commune  with  Him,  he  is  not  impersonal. 
This  the  dreamer  now  realizes,  accepting  that  he  is  in  his 
Father  and  his  Father  in  him.  The  immanent  Creator  is 
also  transcendent;  in  Him  are  combined  all  the  concepts 
expressed  by  the  Trinity,  the  mystery  reason  can  never 
define  although  intuition  may  sense  it  and  symbols  show  it 
forth.  Anna  Livia,  the  necessary  mediatrix,  returns  at  the 
end  as  the  lost  mother,  lost  wife,  who  to  her  "sonhusband" 
has  been  a  benign  Jocasta.  On  the  penultimate  page  she 
seems  to  betray  and  desert  her  human  loves,  but  it  is  be- 
cause she  hears  and  must  obey  the  far  call  of  her  Father. 
On  the  last  page  she  seems  once  more  the  wife  always 
lamenting  the  lost  lover:  'If  I  seen  him  bearing  down  on  me 
now  under  whitespread  wings  like  he'd  come  from  Ark- 
angels,  I  sink  rd  die  down  over  his  feet,  humbly  dumbly, 
only  to  washup"  {FW  628).  The  backward-looking,  lonely, 
human  woman,  who  has  suffered  her  own  religious  terror, 
is  now  the  repentant  Magdalen  at  the  feet  of  her  Lord.  But 
she  is  also  the  Virgin  of  the  Annunciation;  humbly  assenting 
to  the  will  of  her  Father  made  known  by  the  archangelic 
messenger,  she  accepts  the  burden  of  the  unborn  savior. 
Like  the  crone  Kate,  she  is  custodian  of  the  keys,  and  they 
open  a  better  heaven  than  the  Ondt's.  All  along  she  has 
offered  them  to  the  recalcitrant  male  as  she  lured  his  body 
and  led  his  spirit  to  the  edge  of  the  waters  of  death  that 
are  the  waters  of  rebirth.  Beyond  them  she  can  hear  —  and 
perhaps  the  dreamer  may  yet  hear  —  the  far  calls  of  the 
unseeable  Father  whom  the  little  Stephen  thought  he  saw 
with  the  eyes  of  the  body  as  he  gazed  upon  his  father  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh. 


274  ^^^    PHUL 

Thus  Finnegans  Wake  circles  back  ineluctably  to  the  first 
pages  of  the  Portrait.  There  the  child  saw  his  father  looking 
at  him  ''through  a  glass:  he  had  a  hairy  face."  If  the  human 
father's  vision  was  faulty,  so  was  the  child's:  Making  an 
anthropomorphic  god  in  his  father's  image,  he  too  looked 
through  a  glass,  and  darkly.  His  mother  had  "a  nicer  smell" 
than  his  father;  she  plays  for  him  to  dance  the  sailor's  horn- 
pipe; she  knows  her  son,  a  little  Adam,  will  apologize.  By 
perfume  Joyce  always  symbolizes  feminine  allure,  and  music 
and  all  things  heard  represent  aesthetic  and  spiritual  prompt- 
ings. So  Stephen's  mother  is  a  figure  for  all  women,  the 
beloved  temptress  and  the  Muse  as  well  as  the  mediatrix 
Virgin;  she  tends,  inspires  and  intercedes  for  the  son  who 
in  his  old  age,  after  his  long  Odyssey,  will  hear  her  voice 
once  more  before  death  closes  his  ears  until  the  cycle  brings 
rebirth. 

In  each  book  of  the  tetralogy  women,  whose  unearthly 
power  Joyce  so  often  fears  and  resents,  have  the  last  word. 
In  the  Portrait,  the  Book  of  Birth  —  and  of  the  first  ''Mar- 
riage" —  the  mother's  prayer  for  Stephen's  caritas  is  rendered 
almost  inaudible  by  the  clamor  of  his  overweening  ambition. 
In  Ulysses,  the  book  of  the  first  "Death"  with  its  promise 
of  rebirth,  Molly's  aspect  as  death  goddess  is  obscured  by 
her  affirmation  of  life  and  beauty  and  her  impregnable 
undogmatic  faith.  In  Exiles,  which  only  adumbrates  a  true 
marriage.  Bertha  voices  the  detested  feminine  nostalgia  that, 
in  the  event,  Joyce  recognizes  as  the  manifestation  of  a 
tenacious  fidehty.  In  the  Book  of  Death,  Joyce  masks  him- 
self as  the  dreamer  at  the  wake,  mourning  an  earthly  father 
whose  death  inevitably  brings  his  own  terrifyingly  closer. 
And  once  again  he  looks  to  Woman  for  rebirth,  and  his  pass- 
port to  immortality. 

NOTES 

Note  on  Sources:  The  title  is  from  Finnegans  Wake  in  which, 
on  page  186,  Shem  the  Penman  is  seen  "on  his  last  public 


Circling  the  Square  275 

misappearance,  circling  the  square."  Perhaps  a  more  appropriate 
subtitle  would  be  "An  Apology  for  an  Apologia,"  since  in 
''James  Joyce  and  the  Strabismal  Apologia"  (A  James  Joyce 
Miscellany:  Second  Series)  I  brashly  opined  that  Finnegans 
Wake  is  "unstructured." 

For  the  biographical  data  I  am  indebted  to  the  following: 
Sylvia  Beach,  Shakespeare  and  Company  (New  York,  1959); 
Frank  Budgen,  James  Joyce  and  the  Making  of  Ulysses  (London, 
1934)  and  Further  Recollections  of  James  Joyce  (London, 
1955);  J.  F.  Byrne,  Silent  Years  (New  York,  1953);  Mary 
Colum,  Life  and  the  Dream  (Garden  City,  1947)  and  Mary 
and  Padraic  Colum,  Our  Friend  James  Joyce  (Garden  City, 
1958);  Richard  Ellmann,  James  Joyce  (New  York,  1959); 
Stuart  Gilbert,  James  Joyce,  Letters  (New  York,  1957);  Herbert 
Gorman,  James  Joyce  (New  York,  Revised  Edition,  1948); 
Stanislaus  Joyce,  My  Brother's  Keeper  (New  York,  1958). 

Quotations  from  Joyce's  own  writings  are  from  the  following 
editions,  abbreviated  in  citation  as  indicated:  The  Viking  Press: 
Exiles  (E),  Finnegans  Wake  (FW)  and  Letters  (L);  The 
Modern  Library:  A  Portrait  of  the  Artist  as  a  Young  Man  (?) 
and  Ulysses  (U). 

1.  See  W.  Y.  Tindall's  introduction  to  James  Joyce,  Chamber 
Music  (New  York,  1954),  pp.  63-4,  on  onanism  as  a  symbol. 

2.  And  so  did  Joyce,  in  perspective.  In  Gorman's  James  Joyce, 
p.  226,  the  play  is  described  as  Joyce's  "final  compliment  to 
Ibsen"  in  which  he  attacked,  although  "one  cannot  say  he 
solved,"  the  problem  of  "complete  spiritual  freedom"  between 
lovers  and  the  "fear  of  the  intellectual  that  he  bind  with  his 
will  and  desire  the  intuitive  gestures  of  the  beloved."  The  style 
unmistakably  identifies  this  as  one  of  Joyce's  own  third-person 
contributions  to  Gorman's  book.  If  while  writing  the  play  Joyce 
extenuated  Rowan's  moral  obliquity  and  cruelty,  eventually,  this 
later  comment  suggests,  he  saw  him  as  an  older  but  not  wiser 
Stephen;  equally  self-centered  and  devoid  of  an  artist's  empathy, 
both  are  mere  intellectuals.  But  love,  like  religion,  is  a  mystery 
that  eludes  the  intellect  and  can  only  be  apprehended  by  intu- 
ition. Rowan  incessantly  proclaims  freedom,  but  his  silence 
indicates  how  complaisantly  he  accepts  Hand's  congratulations 
for  having  remade  Bertha's  personality.  Actually  he  is  another 


276  VON    PHUL 

Helmer,  who  has  from  the  first  tried  to  mold  a  doll  for  himself. 
True,  the  model  he  selects  is  Nora  Helmer  who,  resembling 
Bertha  in  a  capacity  for  self-forgetful  love,  is  her  antithesis  in 
her  need  for  self-reliant  freedom;  to  Bertha,  the  freedom  Rowan 
persistently  forces  on  her  is  terrifying.  By  his  will  and  desire  he 
thwarts  her  characteristic  intuitive  gesture  of  dependence  on  his 
love.  She  begs  pathetically  for  an  assurance  that  he  needs  her, 
but  the  word  she  implores  he  withholds,  for  he  is  still  unable 
to  give  or  accept  love  ungrudgingly. 

To  read  Ibsen  Joyce  taught  himself  Norwegian,  in  which,  as 
Clive  Hart  helpfully  informs  me,  gift  means  either  married  or 
poison.  The  lesson  sank  in.  But  the  Norwegian  Captain,  that 
reluctant  bridegroom,  is  partly  a  jibe  at  the  doctrinaire  views 
of  marriage  Joyce  derived  from  Ibsen.  That  Nora  Barnacle  was 
anti-intellectual  as  well  as  mindless  seems  often  to  have  embit- 
tered Joyce,  yet  imagination  shudders  to  contemplate  his  suffer- 
ing if  he  had  espoused  an  Ibsenian  '"strong-minded"  intellectual 
who  could  —  and  would  —  adduce  rational  arguments  to  support 
her  opinions  and  wishes. 

3.  Oliver  Gogarty  until  his  death  alternated  between  the  two 
characterizations.  If  either  had  been  more  plausible  it  might 
have  served  as  defense  against  the  innuendoes  about  Mulligan; 
together,  they  cancel  out.  The  Doctor  did  protest  too  much. 

4.  The  explication  has  cost  exegetes  much  labor  trying  to 
reconstitute  the  conventional  stations  of  the  devotion.  In  fifteen 
years  of  revision  Joyce  so  overelaborated  the  text  that  only  a  few 
stations  can  be  identified,  and  they  are  in  disarranged  order.  So 
the  conjurer  misdirected  attention  for  the  meaningful  clue:  that 
twicetold  events  are  repeating  themselves  backward.  The  lap- 
wing Joyce,  like  the  dream  censor,  displaces  emphasis,  magnify- 
ing the  trivial  to  defend  the  significant. 

5.  Lambda  may  allude  to  Judas,  since  to  the  Greeks  it  sig- 
nified thirty.  The  letter  Y  is  also  somehow  an  attribute  of  Shaun 
and  Issy;  to  the  Pythagoreans  it  symbolized  life's  crossroads,  one 
good,  the  other  evil  (vd.  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  xi  edition, 
under  "Y"). 

6.  Thus  FW  412.13-19,  echoes  Cranly's  admonitions  (P  281 
ff.).  For  Cranly-Byrne  as  one  model  for  Shaun,  see  my  "Shaun 
in  Brooklyn/'  The  Analyst,  xvi. 


Circling  the  Square  277 

7.  Lynch,  Stephen's  Judas,  swore  "in  yellow"  (P  239).  The 
original,  Vincent  Cosgrave,  drove  Joyce  into  hysterical  paroxysms 
of  jealousy  in  1909  by  claiming  that  Nora  Barnacle  had  clandes- 
tinely accepted  his  attentions  while  Joyce  was  courting  her.  In 
Ulysses,  Mulligan  doffs  a  yellow  dressing  gown  to  put  on  a 
primrose  waistcoat.  Yellow  is  particularly  the  color  of  Issy  or 
Isolde;  here  Shaun  is  her  "male  corrispondee"  (FW  487). 

8.  She  calls  Jaun  "benjamin  brother"  (FW  457),  though  he 
is  the  elder  twin;  "Jaunick"  and  "Jer"  (FW  458),  but  Shem  is 
Nick  and  Jerry;  she  also  addresses  him  as  "Jaime"  (FW  461). 

9.  And  to  Birth  of  the  second  minor  cycle.  The  section  opens 
with  Jaun  as  a  fast-growing  "cotted  child"   (FW  429). 

10.  We  seem  to  know  Mrs.  Earwicker's  voice  better  than  we 
do  because  her  letter  so  perfectly  suggests  her  speech.  To  this 
point  we  have  heard  in  direct  discourse  only  a  characteristic 
three-word  sentence  (FW  12).  Alp's  lament  (FW  201)  mingles 
the  woman's  voice  with  the  river's;  the  voice  Mercius  remembers 
(FW  194)  is  that  of  May  Dedalus'  ghost. 

11.  We  might  have  availed  ourselves  earlier  of  a  hint  in 
Joyce's  catalogue  of  rumors  about  himself  (L  165).  Wyndham 
Lewis  had  been  "told  that  I  .  .  .  always  carried  four  watches 
and  rarely  spoke  except  to  ask  my  neighbour  what  o'clock  it 
was."  The  "Four  Watches  of  Shaun"  is  a  pun;  the  vigils  are 
Joyce's  own.  The  timepieces,  like  Paley's  watch,  are  both  micro- 
cosmic  metaphors  for  the  macrocosm  and  evidences  of  design; 
their  hands  point  to  the  unseen  maker. 

12.  A  mutch  is  a  shawl.  The  smoke  imagery  evokes  the  sex- 
ridden  Stephen  censing  an  idealized  temptress,  yet  embracing 
cheap  shawlswathed  harlots.  The  dulling  embers  are  sour  be- 
cause the  beloved  is  materialistic  (i.e.  lovemutch,  love  of  ap- 
parel); yet,  suffering  qualms  about  her  unsanctioned  union,  she 
longs  to  return  and  light  a  candle  at  the  altar  she  abandoned. 
But  there  is  compassion  too;  the  penitent  is  forgiven  because  she 
has  loved  much. 


13 

Notes  for  the  Staging  of  Finnegans  Wake 


DAVID     HAYMAN 


JAMES  Joyce  may  well  have  envisaged  a  drama  or,  as 
Stuart  Gilbert  suggests,  a  film  based  upon  one  or  both  of 
his  later  novels :  Ulysses  and  Finnegans  Wake.  In  both  works 
we  find  sections  written  in  dialogue  form  and  complete  with 
stage  directions.  But,  of  the  three  plays  thus  far  drawn  from 
Joyce's  novels,  only  one,  Ulysses  in  Nighttown,  can  be  clas- 
sified as  a  successful  adaptation  of  Joyce's  work.  The  other 
two  are  instructive  failures. 

Allan  McClelland's  Bloomsday,  was  produced  at  Oxford 
under  admittedly  unfavorable  conditions  in  the  winter  of 
1958.  It  represents  an  attempt  to  condense  a  complex  767- 
page  book  into  two-hour's  entertainment,  a  difficult  enough 
job  when  you  are  working  with,  say,  Maugham,  an  impos- 
sible one  when  Joyce  is  the  subject.  The  author,  an  English 
actor,  has  demonstrated  both  his  awareness  of  theatrical 
values  and  his  rather  limited  acquaintance  with  Ulysses. 
Using  Joyce's  words  wherever  possible,  he  has  cut  the  action 
to  the  bone  sacrificing  in  the  process  all  but  one  of  the  book's 
themes  and  destroying  its  structural  balance.  Understand- 
ably, the  play  emerges  a  varied,  but  shallow,  naturalistic 
drama,  lacking  in  continuity  and  point,  racing  relentlessly 

DAVID  HAYMAN  is  the  duthoT  of  d  work  in  French  on  Joyce  et 
Mallarme  An  dssociate  professor  dt  the  University  of  Texds,  he  is 
currently  editing  unpublished  mdnuscripts  of  Joyce. 

278 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  279 

through  an  elaborate  series  of  more  or  less  disconnected 
sequences:  a  theatrical  version  of  the  motion  picture  that 
was  played  too  fast. 

Ulysses  in  Nighttown  (New  York,  1958)  was  first  pre- 
sented at  the  off-Broadway  Rooftop  Theater  in  1958  and 
later  taken  on  tour  to  London  and  the  continent.  Introduc- 
tory material  has  been  taken  from  two  of  the  book's  early 
episodes;  but  the  adaptor,  Marjorie  Barkentin,  draws  most 
of  her  material  from  a  single  chapter,  the  ''nighttown"  or 
"Circe"  sequence.  Like  Mr.  McClelland  she  omits  much 
that  is  extraneous  to  the  conflicts  treated,  but  she  does  not 
distort  Joyce's  meaning  or  change  the  mood  of  the  chapter, 
the  most  vivid  and  stageworthy  in  the  entire  book.  Else- 
where in  the  novel  we  find  only  brief  snippets  of  existence 
contributing  to  a  larger  progression.  In  this  chapter  there 
is  a  clear  dramatic  development;  there  are  easily  defined 
conflicts,  complex  character  interrelationships;  and  there  is 
a  satisfactory  if  ambiguous  resolution.  Elsewhere,  the  effects 
hang  on  literary  techniques  alien  to  the  stage,  and  the  drama 
takes  place  mainly  within  the  minds  of  the  protagonists. 
Here  the  contents  of  the  brains  of  the  two  exhausted  heroes, 
their  inner  drama  is  projected  in  the  form  of  dialogue  and 
mime  against  the  tawdry  substance  of  the  night  world  with 
its  witches'  sabbath  of  whores  and  males  in  rut.  Secret  medi- 
tations and  hidden  urges  become  overt,  if  almost  surrealisti- 
cally  conceived,  activity.  Nowhere  else  in  Ulysses  are  the 
internal  and  the  external  aspects  of  events  so  thoroughly 
integrated;  nowhere  else  are  action  and  reaction  so  mingled 
as  to  make  visible  all  facets  of  behavior.  It  is  here  that  the 
themes  meet  and  interlock,  that  the  essence  of  the  day's 
experience  is  reconstituted  and  given  point. 

Working  with  the  relatively  narrow  compass  of  this  ideally 
constituted  chapter,  the  adaptor  and  the  director  were  able 
to  create  a  convincing  spectacle.  The  production  emphasized 
the  language  and  tonal  qualities  of  the  original,  its  imagery 


28o  HAYMAN 

and  the  implied  rhythms,  the  dreamhke  effects  which  lend 
themselves  best  to  expression  through  dance  and  the  mime. 
Initiation  was  not  a  prerequisite  for  enjoyment. 

Finnegans  Wake,  a  less  accessible  work,  has  thus  far  found 
no  comparable  champions.  One  major  play,  Thornton  Wil- 
der's  The  Skin  of  Our  Teeth,  shows  the  influence  of  Joyce's 
book.  But  while  we  discover  here  the  Wake's  basic  situation, 
the  existence  throughout  the  ages  of  an  archetypal  family, 
Mr.  Wilder's  play  uses  neither  Joyce's  words  nor  his  struc- 
tural devices.  There  remains  Mary  Manning's  version,  pub- 
lished in  1957  under  the  title  Passages  from  Finnegans  Wake 
(Cambridge,  1957)  and  produced  at  the  Poet's  Playhouse 
in  Cambridge  (1955).  I  have  heard  from  friends  who  were 
present  at  the  early  performances  and  from  Nora  White 
Shattuck,  the  choreographer,  that  the  production  was  well 
received  and  that  both  the  cast  and  the  audience  made  con- 
tact with  Joyce's  book  through  the  medium  of  the  spoken 
word,  the  gesture  and  the  dance. 

Unfortunately,  Miss  Manning,  like  Mr.  McClelland,  over- 
stepped herself  by  purporting  to  take  as  her  domain  the 
whole  of  Finnegans  Wake's  rather  ponderous  bulk.  Given 
the  nature  of  her  material,  the  density  of  its  language  and 
the  complexity  of  its  organization,  we  need  hardly  be  startled 
to  find  Joyce's  dreambook  of  mankind  distorted  by  this 
adaptation.  As  any  reader  of  Finnegans  Wake  will  see,  the 
stage  version  resembles  nothing  more  than  a  paste  and  shears 
job;  it  brings  more  mud  and  new  confusion.  Lines  are  at- 
tributed to  the  wrong  characters,  actions  are  misinterpreted, 
while  whole  passages  are  lifted  out  of  context  for  reasons 
which  are  suspect.  Miss  Manning  pays  much  attention  to 
characterization,  drawing  heavily  upon  the  first  and  third 
sections  of  the  Wake  for  random  lines  and  sequences.  But 
the  characters  she  creates  are  only  partially  Joyce's  and  the 
more  coherent  sequences  from  book  11  are  virtually  ignored. 
Even  more  than  Mr.  McClelland's  play,  this  spectacle  tends 
to  demonstrate  how  easily  Joyce's  values  can  be  misrepre- 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  281 

sented  by  a  broadly  generalized  adaptation  of  his  work.  Here 
meaning,  substance,  balance  and  dramatic  consistency  are 
all  sacrificed  to  the  carnival  spirit.  Though  the  act  of  bring- 
ing Joyce's  words  and  some  of  his  humour  before  an  audience 
is  in  itself  worthy  of  praise,  the  atomization  of  his  characters 
and  structure  in  the  name  of  his  creation  is  not. 

The  Harvard  production,  good  vaudeville  and  bad  Joyce, 
represents  a  fine  bit  of  spadework  and  a  useful  precedent, 
but  perhaps  there  is  a  more  valid  approach  to  the  staging  of 
this  book.  My  suggestion  would  be  to  follow  the  lead  of  the 
Nighttown  adaptation  and  concentrate  on  the  one  segment 
of  the  book  which  best  lends  itself  to  the  stage:  the  pub 
scene  from  section  11  with  its  detailed  account  of  the  tragi- 
comic demise  of  the  Hero.  But  before  entering  into  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  dramatic  possibilities  of  this  chapter,  I  should 
like  briefly  to  resume  some  of  the  principal  aspects  of  Fin- 
negans Wake. 


II 


A  compendium  of  man's  experience,  Finnegans  Wake 
treats  of  the  night  and  apparently  takes  place  in  a  dreamer's 
mind.  The  story  told  is  simple,  elusive  and  redundant.  Ac- 
cording to  the  theory  upon  which  the  book  is  based,  history 
repeats  itself  with  predictable  regularity;  each  man  is  the 
universe  in  small  and  every  event  of  his  life  reflects  the  form 
of  the  whole.  Like  Ulysses,  the  Wake  is  cyclical  and  its 
people  are  archetypes  or  lowest  common  denominators  for 
mankind.  But  in  the  latter,  little  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the 
contemporary  level.  Even  place  is  as  uncertain  as  it  is  mul- 
tiple. The  past,  present  and  future  here  merge  kaleidoscopi- 
cally,  and  Man's  experiences  become  as  the  notes,  motifs, 
themes  and  as  the  overtones  of  a  complex  piece  of  music. 
Instead  of  individuated  or  rounded  characters  Joyce  creates 
an  archetypal  family  in  an  archetypal  locale:   the  family 


282  HAYMAN 

Earwicker  of  Dublin,  father-mother-sons-and-daughter  or  hce- 
ALP-Shem-Shaun-and-Issy  who  give  their  identities  to  count- 
less individuals  past  and  present,  fictional  and  real;  to  parts 
of  the  landscape;  to  planets  and  stars  in  the  sky,  animals  and 
birds,  nations  of  the  world,  religions  and  philosophies.  Most 
remarkable  of  all  is  the  language  which  the  author  devised 
to  help  him  suggest  the  above:  the  wordplay  and  puns  which 
permit  him  to  evoke  not  only  all  sorts  of  actions  but  all  sorts 
of  reactions  and  moods  simultaneously,  to  provide  his  read- 
ers with  a  perspective  that  shifts  elusively  as  we  bring  it  into 
focus,  that  modulates  itself  to  the  individual  mind  and  even 
to  the  individual's  mood. 

Here  in  its  broad  outline  is  Joyce's  plot:  With  the  sunset, 
man  falls  under  the  spell  of  the  female  or  instinctual.  During 
the  night,  he  must  redeem  himself  by  means  of  a  quest,  must 
refresh  his  powers  through  sleep  which  takes  him  beyond 
himself  into  a  world  without  definition.  Man's  goal  is  lucid- 
ity or  the  day:  a  fresh  awakening.  But  the  quest  itself  carries 
him  through  all  history  and  his  own  individual  past,  present 
and  future. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  discussion  we  may  call  the  Wake's 
four  major  sections  childhood,  maturity,  senescence  and 
death.  Book  11,  or  the  second  section,  treats  of  the  most  vital 
part  of  a  man's  existence:  the  period  during  which  his  activ- 
ity bears  its  fruit;  the  peak  of  his  development  in  the  post- 
fall  or  night  world.  But  each  subdivision  of  the  Wake  is 
logically  a  microcosm  of  the  whole.  Hence  the  four  chapters 
of  book  II  contain  treatments  in  this  order  of  childhood  or 
the  children  at  play;  adolescence  or  the  young  at  their  studies; 
maturity  and  decline  or  the  males  at  the  tavern;  and  finally, 
old  age  and  death  with  overtones  of  rebirth. 

It  is  the  third  chapter  of  this  section  which  is  concerned 
with  the  most  dramatic  phase  of  the  vital  second  period  of  a 
man's  development.  Occurring  at  the  structural  center  of  the 
Wake,  this  chapter  is  the  only  compact  unit  with  a  stage- 
worthy  dramatic  organization  and  a  significant  denouement. 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  283 

It  contains  in  fact  several  such  dramatic  units,  as  Joyce, 
predictably  enough,  divides  the  chapter  into  four  ''tales," 
each  with  its  own  development  and  climax:  each  with  its 
four  parts.  Within  the  larger  context  and  through  a  pro- 
gression that  is  at  once  subtle,  lucid  and  consistent,  the 
tales  make  manifest  the  steps  of  the  mature  hero's  dissolu- 
tion. 

Joyce's  plan  is  such  that  an  abridged  adaptation  can  re- 
produce the  major  facets  of  ii-iii's  action,  which  is  in  turn 
complex  and  varied  enough  to  convey  the  implications  of 
the  Wakes  language  to  an  uninitiated  audience.  Also  in  the 
chapter's  favor  are  its  unity  of  theme,  its  orderly  and  con- 
ventional plot  development,  plus  of  course  the  complete  in- 
tegration of  part  with  part,  aspect  with  aspect  and  character 
with  character.  All  of  these  qualities  are  available  elsewhere 
in  smaller  quantities,  but  nowhere  else  are  theatrical  values 
so  evident. 

This  chapter  deals  directly  with  the  tragi-comic  circum- 
stances of  the  hero-figure  or  all-father  hce,  Humphrey 
Chimpden  Earwicker,  in  our  times  a  pub-keeper  or  host 
in  the  small  suburban  village  of  Chapelizod,  on  the  outskirts 
of  Phoenix  Park,  home  of  the  Dublin  Zoo  and  the  Welling- 
ton monument.  The  location  is  significant.  We  are  outside 
the  Garden  of  Eden  or  alongside  the  Phoenix'  pyre  in  the 
company  of  post-fall  man  living  in  the  memory  of  the  fall 
and  the  primal  sin.  Like  man,  the  day  has  fallen;  dusk  is 
deepening;  and  though  the  female  is  not  present  in  this 
turn-of-the-century  pub  with  its  roistering  rout  of  male  drink- 
ers, her  spirit  hovers  over  the  proceedings  and  colors  the 
action.  For  the  night  world  is  traditionally  female,  uncon- 
scious or  instinctual.  Hce  himself  participates  in  a  number 
of  existences,  all  of  them  consistent  with  the  epoch  described 
by  our  chapter:  he  is  Odin,  Christ,  Noah,  Roderick 
O'Conor,  King  Mark,  to  name  only  a  few.  Standing  behind 
his  bar,  the  pub-keeping  hero  dispenses  drink  to  his  tweh^e 
clients  in  a  manner  reminiscent  of  Christ  serving  wine  to 


284  HAYMAN 

the  twelve  disciples,  Odin  feasting  the  dead  heroes,  and  King 
Roderick  O'Conor  entertaining  his  dissatisfied  nobles.  His 
physical  movements  are,  however,  minimal.  Once  or  twice 
he  leaves  the  tavern  to  visit  his  privy.  At  other  times  he  is 
seen  counting  coins  or  uneasily  picking  up  bits  of  his  client's 
conversation.  Furthermore,  his  role  is  a  mute  one  until  half- 
way through  the  chapter  when,  impressed  by  a  growing 
sentiment  of  opposition,  he  feels  called  upon  to  defend  his 
present  position  as  server  of  drink,  leader  of  men  and  be- 
stower  of  grace. 

At  this  point,  by  attempting  to  justify  himself  before  his 
guests,  he  lays  himself  open  to  the  overt  judgment  of  cus- 
tom or  of  public  opinion.  He  is  saved  only  when,  at  pub- 
closing  time,  the  reluctant  drinkers  are  expelled  from  the 
pub  by  the  old  manservant,  Siggerson.  Once  out  of  doors  the 
angered  clients  raise  their  voices  in  drunken  revelry  reaffirm- 
ing their  condemnation  of  hce  to  the  tune  of  the  scurrilous 
lampoon,  "The  Ballad  of  Persse  O'Reilly"  (or  perce  oreille: 
earwig),  the  death  hymn  of  the  hero's  reputation.  Now  the 
exhausted  host  accepts  his  fate  or  succumbs  to  it  by  drinking 
his  guests'  leavings  and  falling  into  a  drunken  slumber,  ready 
at  last  to  dream  the  dream  which  is  Finnegans  Wake. 

In  terms  of  the  particular  night  of  Finnegans  Wake,  the 
hour  is  nearing  midnight.  In  terms  of  social  history,  the  auto- 
crat has  abdicated  in  favor  of  popular  rule.  In  terms  of  arche- 
types, we  are  witnessing  the  tragedy  of  the  masterful  leader 
or  father-figure  gone  to  seed.  What  follows  after  ii-iii  is  his 
theophany,  or  the  rise  of  his  somewhat  etherealized  spirit  in 
the  form  of  the  dream  son  or  new  leader,  the  successor 
in  whom  the  heroic  past  reigns  as  the  sign  of  authority. 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  285 

III 


In  the  stage  version  hce's  place  is  behind  the  bar  until 
the  customers  have  left,  but  he  should  have  a  silent  helper 
or  counterpart  in  the  management  of  his  establishment: 
Siggerson  or  the  hero  grown  old.  This  personage  has  a  clear 
dramatic  function.  He  embodies  the  true  condition  or  fate 
of  the  Hero  as  opposed  to  the  illusory  one  evidenced  by  the 
vital  bar-keeper.  Siggerson,  whose  Scandinavian  name  iden- 
tifies him  as  a  debased  descendant  of  the  original  Viking 
rulers  of  Dublin,  is  occupied  serving  drinks,  cleaning  tables, 
keeping  order  and  finally  clearing  the  house.  It  is  in  this  role 
or  as  a  counterpart  of  Siggerson,  the  worn-out  King  Roderick 
O'Conor,  that  hce  finally  falls  under  the  influence  of  drink. 
The  two  should  metaphorically  blend  into  one  at  the  end  of 
the  play.  In  all  events,  Siggerson  is  an  ironic  constant,  a 
mirror  image  of  hce;  and  the  narrowing  of  the  gap  which 
separates  master  from  servant  is  part  and  parcel  with  the 
tragic  development  illustrated  by  this  chapter.  It  calls  to 
mind  the  conversion  which  takes  place  at  the  end  of  Oedipus 
Rex  where  the  king  becomes  the  equal  of  the  blind  seer 
Tiresias.  Characteristically,  in  Joyce's  book  the  same  pro- 
gression may  be  interpreted  as  comic;  for  there  is  much  that 
is  ridiculous  in  the  fate  of  an  aging  pub-keeper  who,  having 
rid  himself  of  antagonistic  guests,  proceeds  to  finish  their 
drinks  while  dancing  a  tipsy  jig.  On  the  surface  everything 
in  the  Wake  is  hilarious.  This  paradox  was  intended  by 
Joyce.  Its  nature  can  be  made  clear  to  an  audience  with  the 
aid  of  cleverly  manipulated  language  and  perhaps  also  with 
the  aid  of  masks  suggestive  of  the  ritual  origin  of  drama. 

Till  now  I  have  paid  scant  attention  to  the  action  taking 
place  in  front  of  the  bar.  Here,  along  with  the  host's  sterile 
future  or  Siggerson,  we  find  the  above-mentioned  twelve 
clients:  the  king's  subjects,  the  worshippers  or  disciples  of 
the  scapegoat  hero,  the  hours  of  his  day  or  the  months  of  his 


286  HAYMAN 

year.  They  are  also  a  cross-section  of  the  useful  trades,  a 
group  of  citizens  in  the  act  of  getting  drunk  or  surrendering 
to  some  primeval  urge,  that  is,  coming  into  contact  with 
their  universal  or  archetypal  heritage.  Hence  we  may  equate 
them  with  the  ritual  audience  or  the  chorus  of  a  Greek  play. 
In  terms  of  the  pub-keeping  present,  this  group  of  ordinary 
citizens  is  occupied  drinking,  quarreling,  telling  barroom 
tales  and  hstening  to  the  pub  radio.  Its  components  are  an 
aspect  of  the  mass  mind,  hardly  worthy  of  differentiation, 
but  capable  of  making  rough  and  ready  distinctions  and  of 
acting  with  violence  when  aroused.  As  Joyce  says,  ''Group 
drinkards  maaks  grop  thinkards." 

These  clients  occupy  a  middle  plane  in  the  stage  version 
of  the  chapter.  They  are  not  brought  into  clearer  focus  until 
the  penultimate  scene.  However,  the  action  of  the  chapter, 
which  may  best  be  envisaged  as  taking  place  mainly  in  the 
pub-keeper's  brain,  is  capable  of  expression  partially  through 
the  medium  of  their  reactions.  Filtering  through  the  Hero's 
consciousness,  their  behavior  evokes  deep  sensations  raised 
from  the  primitive  or  shared  substrata  of  experience:  guilt 
feelings  associated  with  the  Hero's  past  or  feelings  of  inade- 
quacy Hnked  to  his  present.  Cast  in  narrative  form  these  are 
projected  onto  the  stage  through  the  medium  of  a  mirror 
group  of  clients  whose  substance  and  behavior  are  ultimately 
more  convincing  than  are  those  of  the  primary  set  of  drinkers. 
Ideally  both  the  primary  hce  and  the  primary  set  of  twelve 
along  with  the  ''real"  or  "temporal"  level  of  the  action 
should  serve  as  a  backdrop  for  the  mental  activity  of  the 
hero-figure.  In  the  night  world,  what  we  normally  perceive 
as  real  becomes  bidimensional  or  flat.  But,  given  the  limits 
of  the  stage  and  of  the  audience,  we  can  only  approximate 
this  condition  by  placing  in  the  foreground  or  in  front  of 
the  basic  barroom  scene  physical  embodiments  of  the  pub- 
keeper's  fantasy. 

There  are  a  number  of  ways  in  which  the  scene  could  be 
reproduced.  The  primary  level  might  be  projected  upon  a 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  287 

gauze  backdrop;  it  might  be  portrayed  by  actors  placed  di- 
rectly behind,  to  one  side  of  or  even  above  the  mirror  group. 
It  might  include  a  primary  hce  with  a  primary  bar  or  it 
might  not.  This  would  depend  upon  physical  factors.  What 
is  important  however  is  that  the  audience  understand  the 
nature  of  the  dramatic  situation  and  the  locus  of  the  drama. 
It  must  be  reasonably  evident  that,  as  Joyce  says  in  one  of 
his  earliest  notebooks,  the  ''characters  exhibit  to  [the]  ter- 
rified protagonist  [hce]  their  dream  malevolence."  Given 
this  knowledge,  the  theatergoers  will  be  equipped  to  appre- 
ciate the  humour  of  the  Wake  and  the  pathos  and  irony 
which  filter  through  that  humour.  The  swift  pace  of  the 
action  and  its  multiplicity  make  it  necessary  that  these  qual- 
ities be  gently  affirmed  by  means  of  such  devices  as  the 
animated  backdrop. 

Joyce  thought  of  the  entire  chapter  as  a  single  tale  narrated 
in  a  single  voice,  a  frame  story  in  the  tradition  of  the 
Decameron  or  of  the  1001  Nights.  The  sub-tales,  four  in 
number,  each  contribute  to  the  coherence  of  the  major  unit, 
and  taken  together  the  chapter  and  its  parts  represent  an 
account  of  the  progression  of  the  oral  tradition  and  of  the 
short-tale  form  through  the  ages  or  from  historical  period  to 
historical  period.  Narrators  are  therefore  an  essential  part  of 
the  stage  version.  The  voice  of  the  frame  tale  might  emanate 
from  among  the  primary  group  of  clients.  For  dramatic  effect 
his  identity  could  be  withheld  until  in  the  final  sequence 
a  spotlight  reveals  him  to  be  none  other  than  hce's  double, 
Siggerson.  This  ''mystery''  narrator  should  be  heard  only  at 
the  beginning  of  the  chapter  and  in  the  intermissions  be- 
tween the  acts  or  scenes.  Each  of  the  individual  scenes  has 
a  voice  and  locale  of  its  own  and  in  each  case  the  narrator 
should  speak  from  the  level  on  which  the  particular  tale 
originates. 

Taken  separately,  each  of  the  stories  gives  a  diflPerently 
modulated  account  of  the  Hero's  fall.  First,  there  is  the 
capitulation  to  woman  or  the  procreative  act;  then,  the  fall 


288  HAYMAN 

at  the  hands  of  the  progeny  or  a  usurpation  of  function; 
third,  comes  dissolution  or  the  loss  of  position  or  face  before 
inferiors;  and  fourth,  the  acceptance  of  age,  inanition  and 
death.  Viewed  as  a  part  of  a  rational  framework  these  tales 
form  a  logical  and  coherent  progression,  a  variation  on  the 
four  phase  structure  of  the  Wake  itself. 

As  the  chapter  opens,  we  are  told  how  a  certain  Norwegian 
Captain  made  three  raids  on  the  Irish  coast  or  three  visits 
to  the  port  of  Dublin,  each  time  taking  something  without 
paying  for  it.  On  the  fourth  and  final  visit  he  is  apprehended 
by  his  landlubber  counterpart,  baptized  and  married  off  to 
the  daughter  of  Ireland,  alp,  traditionally  the  wife  of  hce. 
Visit  by  visit,  the  figure  of  the  captain  becomes  increasingly 
civilized,  until,  in  the  last  sequence,  the  buccaneering  Viking 
is  very  like  a  Dutch  sea  captain,  a  peaceful  merchant.  The 
Captain's  story  is  among  other  things  a  record  of  Dublin's 
maritime  history,  of  colonization  and  conquest  and  of  com- 
merce. It  is  the  tale  of  man's  coming  or  the  taming  of  the 
sea  and  of  man's  subjection  to  woman  and  the  social  neces- 
sities: his  loss  of  freedom.  It  concludes  on  the  note  of  child- 
birth or  fruition.  The  next  tale  takes  up  somewhat  later  and 
records  the  experiences  of  the  Irish  in  the  church  or  at  war: 
that  is,  serving  stranger  lords.  In  it  an  Irish  "wild  goose" 
(soldier  or  missionary  monk)  reports  how  he  (or  someone 
with  whom  he  identifies)  has  shot  or  otherwise  embarrassed 
the  hero-figure,  a  Russian  General  in  the  Crimean  War  sur- 
prised while  answering  the  call  of  nature.  After  commerce 
and  seamanship,  war  and  religion,  come  politics  and  law 
which  Joyce  treats  by  describing  the  trial  and  conviction  of 
a  public  figure  (hce).  The  last  tale  takes  drunkenness,  the 
favorite  Irish  vice,  as  one  of  its  themes  and  defeat  as  another 
when  the  rollicking  King  Roderick  O'Conor,  last  high  king 
of  Ireland,  tipples  his  way  into  eternity  with  a  heavy  heart. 

If  we  are  to  preserve  the  structure  of  our  models,  the 
staging  of  the  first  tales  must  be  elaborate.  Thus  the  Cap- 
tain's tale  will  be  staged  like  a  flattened-out  three  ring  circus. 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  289 

At  least  three  levels  of  activity  are  implied  by  Joyce's  treat- 
ment of  this  sequence,  though  attention  need  be  focused  on 
only  one  level  at  a  time  and  on  only  one  aspect  of  that  level. 
Briefly,  here  is  how  the  first  act  might  be  played.  From  his 
position  behind  the  bar  hce  broods  upon  the  implications 
of  the  tales  being  told  in  the  pub  and  creates  in  his  mind  the 
second  scenic  level  with  its  mirror  clients.  On  this  second 
level  the  tale  is  told  by  a  second  set  of  clients,  but  its  action 
must  be  mimed  and  acted,  partially  at  least,  on  a  supple- 
mentary level  by  actors  in  period  costumes.  Much  broad  fun 
can  be  had  through  the  presentation  of  the  Captain's  com- 
ings and  goings,  the  rage  of  the  repeatedly  outwitted  lands- 
men, and  the  final  jubilee  celebration  on  the  occasion  of  the 
marriage  to  alp  as  well  as  through  the  mimed  reactions  and 
the  general  behavior  of  the  Host:  "the  pilsener  had  the 
baar."  There  should  be  evident  physical  resemblances  be- 
tween the  Host,  the  principal  landsman  (or  "Ships  Hus- 
band") and  the  Captain;  for  they,  like  the  Russian  General 
and  King  Roderick,  are  all  aspects  of  hce.  As  the  action 
progresses  in  this  and  the  following  tales,  the  clients  on  both 
levels  show  signs  of  increasing  drunkenness.  The  group 
ushered  out  by  Siggerson  in  the  third  tale  is  almost  out  of 
control,  in  open  revolt;  it  is  full  of  latent  chaos  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  chaos  to  come. 

The  second  piece  follows  after  an  interlude  designed  to 
recall  the  pub-keeper's  married  state.  Materializing  from  be- 
hind a  calendar  picture  of  the  "Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade," 
the  "television"  skit  reenacted  by  Butt  and  Taff  is  a  mani- 
festation of  the  dramatic  impulse  in  man.  The  narrators  of 
the  tale  are  counterparts  of  other  antagonistic  couples  ap- 
pearing throughout  the  Wake:  Mutt  and  Jute,  Cain  and 
Abel,  Jacob  and  Esau  and  of  course  Shem  and  Shaun:  the 
twin  sons  or  two  sides  of  hce:  his  inner  and  his  outer  con- 
sciousness. Here,  the  two  men  may  be  variously  seen.  In  one 
sense  they  are  soldier-veterans  (wild  geese)  reminiscing 
about  the  Crimean  War  and  the  Battle  of  Sevastopol.  The 


290  HAYMAN 

tale  they  tell  or  rather  the  tale  Butt  tells,  for  he  claims  to 
have  witnessed  the  event,  is  of  one  Buckley,  a  common 
soldier,  v^ho  surprised  the  general  in  full  regalia  praying  or 
reheving  himself  in  the  wood.  According  to  this  account, 
Buckley  was  at  first  taken  aback,  then  disgusted  by  the  sight. 
Clearly  he  acted  under  provocation,  but  his  action  is  equiva- 
lent to  parricide.  Butt  and  Taff  may  also  be  seen  as  penitent 
and  priest  of  the  Catholic  faith,  as  two  friars  or  jackpriests, 
as  priests  of  some  pagan  fertility  rite,  as  the  sons  of  Noah,  or 
as  two  music-hall  clowns.  In  the  detailed  stage  directions 
which  precede  each  of  their  dialogues,  Joyce  describes  their 
posturing.  Actually  the  tale  of  Buckley's  behavior  is  told 
mainly  through  the  gestures  of  Butt;  its  significance  is  made 
clear  by  those  of  Taff. 

The  dramatic  situation  involves  the  two  clowns  more  in- 
timately than  it  does  the  protagonists  of  the  tale  they  tell. 
In  a  social  context  these  two  sons  of  the  land  are  preparing 
to  accept  the  responsibility  for  overthrowing  the  leader,  mes- 
merizing themselves  into  action.  We  are  moving  from  an 
autocratic  to  a  democratic  period;  the  plebes  are  banding 
together.  In  the  course  of  the  narrative  therefore  subtle 
changes  take  place.  Butt,  who  plays  the  penitent  and  identi- 
fies with  the  voyeur-killer,  Buckley,  begins  by  describing  the 
event.  His  description  becomes  a  boast  and  then  a  confes- 
sion; and  Taff,  whose  sympathies  at  the  start  are  with  the 
victim,  gives  vent  to  feelings  of  outrage.  But  gradually,  as 
the  tale  advances,  Taff  finds  his  sympathy  wavering,  falls  un- 
der the  spell  of  the  narrative  and  joins  in  the  condemnation 
of  the  General,  thus  by  association  implicating  himself  in 
the  murder.  At  the  end  of  the  recital,  the  two  clowns  are 
of  one  mind  and  are  indeed  joined  in  their  rather  timorous 
hatred  of  the  semimythical  hero-figure  —  the  ineffectual 
leader  or  the  aging  father.  A  new  age,  that  of  the  people  and 
the  sons,  is  dawning  within  the  larger  context  of  the  chapter. 
Only  at  such  a  time  would  the  pub-keeper  feel  compelled 
to  identify  openly  with  the  overthrown  and  discredited  Rus- 
sian. 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  Wake  291 

The  staging  of  the  dialogue  should  be  relatively  simple. 
As  though  projected  upon  a  television  screen,  the  two  men 
play  their  provocative  skit  on  a  small  spotlit  area  located 
somewhere  between  the  mirror  group  and  the  primal  group 
of  chents.  Though  their  appearance  is  heralded  by  comments 
from  the  mirror  group  only,  their  exit  elicits  chorused  re- 
marks from  both  sets  of  clients.  The  behavior  of  Buckley 
and  the  General  is  presented  entirely  through  the  mime  of 
the  brother  pair.  The  two  clowns  should  be  broadly  music 
hall  —  their  dialogue  is  accompanied  by  much  attitudinizing, 
by  an  occasional  two-step,  by  blows  and  falls;  while  in  the 
background  we  hear  medleys  of  cheap  tunes.  Joyce  had  for 
one  of  his  models  for  the  chapter  and  particularly  for  this 
dialogue  the  traditional  Dublin  Christmas  pantomime  as  he 
remembered  it  from  his  own  childhood.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind,  however,  that  every  aspect  of  Finnegans  Wake, 
every  scene,  action  and  gesture  reverberates  through  the  ages : 
The  music-hall  mime  is  for  example  a  debased  form  of  re- 
hgious  ritual.  Its  formulas  are  timeless.  The  skit  is  punc- 
tuated by  interludes  designed  to  point  up  and  deepen  the 
action:  a  horse  race,  the  General's  last  rites,  the  ''abnihiliza- 
tion  of  the  etym."  On  the  stage  these  eEects  might  best  be 
produced  with  the  aid  of  film  strips. 

The  two  remaining  episodes  are  more  closely  linked  to  the 
Hero's  present,  that  is  to  his  status  as  an  enfeebled  ruler. 
We  have  left  the  realms  of  the  folk  memory  and  the  heroic 
and  autocratic  past.  The  next  sequence  shows  hce  judged 
and  condemned  not  by  some  shadowy  storytale  figures  but 
by  his  own  guests,  his  former  subjects,  now  his  peers.  In  this 
connection  it  is  interesting  to  explore  the  etymology  of  the 
word  ''host"  which  Joyce  applies  both  to  his  hero  as  scape- 
goat-pub-keeper and  to  his  hero's  enem)^,  Hosty,  the  author 
of  the  "Ballad  of  Persse  O'Reilly." 

The  action  of  the  third  tale  is  varied:  Wliile  hce,  his  posi- 
tion having  been  exposed  by  his  own  testimony,  looks  on 
in  dismay,  his  judges  and  jury  hear  new  evidence  through 
the  medium  of  a  radio  broadcast  reaffirming  the  circum- 


292  HAYMAN 

stances  of  his  crime.  Once  again  he  feels  obhged  to  speak, 
this  time  in  defense  of  his  own  character  rather  than  that  of 
the  Russian.  His  plea  of  'guilty  but  fellows  culpows"  leaves 
him  at  the  mercy  of  the  underdogs,  who,  after  Siggerson  ex- 
pels them  from  the  pub  or  locks  them  in  the  jury  room, 
deliver  their  verdict  amidst  overtones  of  Old  Testament  law 
and  the  popular  justice  of  Hosty's  ballad. 

The  staging  of  this  episode  involves  a  subtle  diminution 
in  the  number  of  the  characters  on  stage,  and  equally  subtle 
changes  in  the  aspect  of  the  hero.  As  the  story  progresses  the 
mirror  group  of  clients  mixes  in  with  the  primary  group  to 
form  one  set  of  twenty-four  people  (or  hours),  all  accusing 
the  hero.  But  before  pub-closing  time,  their  number  will  have 
dwindled  to  twelve,  so  that  the  group  expelled  by  Siggerson 
suggests  a  jury.  Only  two  people  are  left  on  stage  at  the  end 
of  this  sequence:  hce  and  Siggerson.  Also  in  the  building 
and  audible,  though  not  visible,  are  the  four  old  men  of  the 
Evangel,  whose  presence  on  the  premises  after  closing  time 
suggests  paradoxically  that  hce,  like  Noah,  is  selected  for 
individual  salvation.  Though  there  is  a  considerable  amount 
of  choral  dialogue  in  the  third  tale,  most  of  the  action  is 
mimed  with  descriptive  comments  from  either  the  on-stage 
narrator  or  an  anonymous  radio  announcer.  The  verdict  of 
the  clients,  for  example,  is  pronounced  off-stage  and  broad- 
cast over  the  pub  radio  which  also  carries  the  tale  of  the 
(mock)  execution  of  the  victim.  With  the  aid  of  such  me- 
chanical devices  the  involved  behavior  of  the  democratic 
personae  can  be  made  clear  to  a  theater  audience. 

It  is  Siggerson  who  openly  introduces  and  recounts  the 
final  narrative  or  fourth  tale  against  the  sound  of  rain  her- 
alding the  deluge  and  of  distant  thunder  signaling  the 
theophany  of  the  Hero  and  the  advent  of  a  new  age. 
Throughout  the  second  half  of  the  chapter  hce  is  aging 
rapidly,  taking  on  aspects  first  of  the  Norwegian  Captain, 
then  of  the  Russian  General  or  of  a  Noah  betrayed  by  his 
sons,  then  of  a  fallen  politician,  and  finally  of  King  Roderick 


Notes  for  Staging  Finnegans  V/ake  293 

O'Conor  broken  by  the  disaffection  of  his  vassals.  This  last 
figure  is  of  an  age  with  Siggerson  whom  he  resembles  closely 
though  the  Viking  serving-man  must  wear  clothing  reminis- 
cent of  the  costume  worn  by  the  first  Norwegian  Captain. 
King  Roderick's  demise  takes  place  on  a  dramatically  empty 
stage,  littered  with  vestiges  of  the  night's  feast.  Hce's  part 
should  be  completely  mimed.  Here,  amidst  the  props  of  his 
past,  he  is  seen  dissolving  his  misery  in  drink,  succumbing  at 
last  to  the  night  or  the  spirit.  A  feeble  vestige  of  male  power, 
he  is  drowning  his  consciousness. 

The  final  curtain  falls.  Hce  as  mankind  has  relived  his  past, 
faced  his  present  and  been  transported  into  his  future.  The 
chapter  that  opens  with  the  statement:  'It  may  not  or 
maybe  a  no  concern  of  the  Guinesses  but,"  closes  with  a  ref- 
erence to  the  eternal  repetition  of  types  and  events,  a  return 
to  beginnings  and  the  night:  "As  who  has  come  returns  .  .  . 
Now  follow  we  out  by  Starloe." 


en- 


^7°in27 

RaSij'-nEr. 

^xm 

Rolurnsdl 

JAN  1  1  ^S87 

DCCienK 

1 

r 

UL  I    U  1  Wf  f 

|Pl»!9li'/    ' 

-  -  -      ,    ^  ^t! 

m-iuW: 

i  .         .     :         1     JUL  2  7  1989 

iifip  n  2  W^^ 

Mititi  u  ./    innn 

|\t*n   y— ^  »3^' 

APR  0  6  El             

,     ^    V     ^    v,^                 j                                     , 

• 

f^nms      ..^^ 

.  1 

v^r^ . 

^. 

— ^,--  - 

• 

'.                 ',  • 

• 

.  •, 

, 

i 

^ U ,.    _». 

■II     ,-   -     -  ,  ,  , 

3  1262  00094  6763 


3  (J./OJUU. 


')"      'I  I,'' I'       .    ,    I   ■'•'i'  1,  ■    r'r'i,',  -.1     ,    i'    ■'<•'■"•'■,■;,:,••,     .1.      ,    ,t,.  .,••,    ,,.,<,i  ,   '"•"''<'!■'••'''      ..'-.''B'